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THE 



POETS AND THE POETRY 

t t 

i 



OF 



THE ANCIENT GREEKS; 



WITH 



AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, 



• 

AND A BEIEF VIEW OF 



GRECIAN PHILOSOPHERS, ORATORS, AND HISTORIANS. 



BY 

ABRAHAM MILLS, A.M. 

AUTHOR OF THE LITERATURE AND THE LITERARY MEN OF GREAT BRITAIN 
AND D2ELAND, ETC. ETC. 




BOSTON: 
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, AND COMPANY. 

NEW YORK: JAMES C. DERBY. 

1854. 

o 









Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

Abraham mills, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 
Southern District of New York. 



STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 
216 WILLIAM STREET, N. Y. 



TO 

CHARLES KING, I.L.D., 

PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE, I¥ THE CITY OF NEW YOKE, 

IS, AS A MARK OF GEEAT RESPECT, 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



PEEFACE. 

In offering to the public the following Lectures on Grecian 
Literature, the author would avail himself of the opportunity 
thus afforded, to express his unfeigned gratification with the 
flattering manner in which his recent lectures on the Literature 
of Great Britain and Ireland were received, and to assure the 
generous admirers of that work, that such unexpected com- 
mendation of his past labors are duly appreciated by him. 

In the present volume the author has endeavored to present 
the result of many years' study and investigation in the depart- 
ment of literature to which it pertains, in a style sufficiently 
removed from antiquity to give to the subject all the freshness of 
which it is susceptible, or to which his own abilities are equal ; 
and should he have failed to excite the sympathy and elicit the 
interest of his readers in the literary affairs of the great nation 
and the distinguished men of whom he treats, he will be con- 
strained to feel and free to confess, that his failure is not 
attributable to a want of value in the materials at his command, 
but to a want of skill in the use he has made of them. 

To avoid burthening and deforming his pages with the 
numerous authorities which he has consulted in the preparation 
of this work, the author deems it proper here to remark, that 
he has availed himself of every aid that the labors of previous 
writers on this subject, with whose works he is familiar, afford. I 
Besides to Plutarch, Athenceus, Suidas, and many other ancient 
biographers and grammarians, the author acknowledges himself 



vi PREFACE. 

particularly indebted to Eschenburgh's Manual of Classical Lit- 
erature, Mullens History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, SchlegeVs 
Lectures on the Greek Drama, Browne's History of Greek Classical 
Literature, Mure's History of the Language and Literature of the 
Greeks, Peter's Poetry of the Ancients, Smith's Dictionary of Greek 
and Roman Antiquities, and Smith's Dictionary of Greek and 
Roman Biography and Mythology. From the papers in Cum- 
berland's Observer, on the Comic Drama of Athens, the author has 
also derived much valuable information, and obtained many 
gems of poetry very accurately and sweetly rendered into Eng- 
lish. The poetical translations with which the work so exten- 
sively abounds are uniformly taken from authors whose reputa- 
tion as translators, is established beyond a peradventure ; but as 
each translation will indicate the source whence it is taken, any 
farther reference here to the subject, would be superfluous. 

"With these brief remarks, the author sends forth to the world 
this second literary venture, fondly hoping that it may be 
wafted over the sea of public opinion by as favoring gales, and 
finally be moored in as safe a haven, as its predecessor. 

Globe Hotel, Brooklyn, ) 
June, 1853, ) 



AUTHORS' NAMES, 



PAGE 

A-CH/E'-us 323 

A-cu-si-la'-us 465 

JS'-li-an 485 

^E-mil-i-a'-nus Ni-g-e'-us 239 

^Es'-chi-nes. 454 

iEs'-CHY-LUS 250 

^E'-sop > 89 

A-ga'-thi-as. 241 

Ag'-a-thon. . . 323 

Al-c,e'-us 86 

Alc'-man 84 

A-lex'-is 394 

A-meip'-si-as 347 

Am'-phis 347 

A-na'-cre-on 105 

An-ax-ag'-o-ras 419 

An-ax-an'-dri-des 382 

A-nax-i-la'-us 383 

An-ax-i-man'-der, 416 

An-ax-im'-e-nes 417 

An-doc'-i-des 442 

An-tag'-o-ras. 209 

An-tip'-a-ter of Si'-don 227 

An-tip'-a-ter of Thes-sa-lo-ni'-ca.. . 238 

An-tiph'-a-lus 237 

An-tiph'-a-nes 384 

An'-ti-phon 440 

An-tis'-the-nes 428 

An'-y-te 184 

a-pol-lo-do'-rus. . 411 

Ap-ol-lo'-ni-us Rho'-di-us 194 

Ap'-pi-an 484 

A-ra'-ros ^ 381 

A-ra'-tus 179 

Ar-ces-i-la'-us 430 

Ar-che-la'-us 421 

Ar'-chi-as 230 

Ar-chil'-o-chus 79- 

Ar-chy'-tas 147 

Ar'-i-phron. 148 

Ar-is-tar'-ghus 323 

Ar-is-tip'-pus 427 

Ar-is'-to-phon 387 

Ar-is-toph'-a-nes 351 

Ar'-is-to-tle , 430 

Ar'-ri-an 484 

As-CLE-Pl'-A-DES 182 

Ax-i-o-ni'-cus 383 

Bac-chyl'-i-des 143 

Ba'-thon 383 

Bi'-on. 213 

Cad'-mus. 464 

Cal-lim'-a-chus 187 

Cal-lis'-tra-tus 150 

Car-ci'-nus , 323 



PAGE 

Car-ne'-a-des 430 

Car-phyl'-i-des 240 

Cele-re'-mon 324 

Cha'-ron 465 

Chi-on'-i-des 329 

Chce'-ri-lus 251 

Chry-sip'-pus 429 

Cle-an ; -thes 206 

Cle-ar'-chus 388 

Cra'-tes 341 

Cra ti'-nus 335 

Cri-na'-go-ras 237 

Cri'-ton 388 

Cro'-by-lus 388 

Cte'-si-as 480 

Dam-a-ge'-tes 212 

Da-mox'e-nus 389 

De-ma'-des 457 

De-me'-tri-us 389 

De-me'-tri-us Pha-le'-re-us 457 

De-moch'-a-ris 242 

De-moc'-ri-tus 389 

De-mos'-the-nes 448 

Di-nar'-chus 457 

Di-nol'-o-chus 333 

Di-o-do'-rus 389 

Di-o-do'-rus Sio'-u-lus 482 

Di-og'-e-nes 428 

Di-og'-e-nes of A-pol-lo'-nia 428 

Di'-on Cas'-sius 485 

Di-o-ny'-si-us Hal-i-car-nas'-sus .... 483 

Di-o-ny'-si-us of Syracuse 389 

Di o-ny'-si-us of Si-no'-pe 389 

Di-o-ny'-si-us 240 

Di-o-scor'-i-des 210 

Di-o-ti'-mus. 182 

Diph'-i-lus 410 

Ec-phan'-ti-des 330 

Em-ped'-o-cles 146 

E-phip'-pus 389 

Ep-i-char'-mus 330 

E-pic'-ra-tes 389 

Ep-i-cu'-rus 432 

E-rin'-na 97 

Er'-i-phus 391 

Eu-bu'-lus 381 

Eu'-clid 428 

Eu-cli'-des 428 

eu-pho'-ri-on 211 

Eu'-phron. 391 

Eu'-po-lis 338 

Eu-rip'-i-des 299 

Eux-en'-i-des 331 

E-ve'-nus 147 

Ev'-e-tes 149 



Vlll 



AUTHORS' NAMES 



PAGE 

Ger-mi' nus 239 

Greg'-o-ry Na-zi-an'-zen 241 

Hec a-t^e'-us 464 

Hel-lan'-i-cus 466 

He-ni'-o-chus 391 

Her-a-cli'-tus 418 

Her-me si'-a-nax 156 

Her-mtp'-pus 348 

He-rod'-i-tus 461 

He-ro-do'-rus 466 

He'-si-od 69 

Hip-par'-chus 348 

Ho'-mer 43 

Hy'-bri-as 155 

Hy-per'-i-des 456 

Ib'-y-cus 100 

I'-on 322 

J-sje'-vs.. . . , 446 

I-soc'-ra-tes. , 444 

Ju'-LI-AN OF E'-GYPT 241 

Le-on'-i-das of Ta-ren'-tum 203 

Le-on'-i-das of Al-ex-an'-dri-a 238 

Leu-cip'-pus 426 

Lu'-ci-AN 239 

Lu-cil'-i-us 241 

Lyo'-o-phron 162 

Ly-cur'-gus 447 

Lys'-i-as .'. 442 

Ma-ce-do'-ni-us 242 

Mag'-nes 329 

Mar-ci-a'-nus 335 

Mar'-cus Ar-gen-ta'-ri-us 239 

Mel-e-a'-ger 231 

Me-lis'-sus 247 

Me-nan'-der 401 

Mim-ner'-mus 99 

Mna-sal^-cas 155 

Mne-sim'-a-chus 391 

Mos'-chi-on 393 

Mos'-chus 219 

Mu-s^e'-us 241 

Myl'-lus , 329 

Ne'o-phrox 322 

Ni-cjs'-ne-tus 210 

Ni-can'-der 224 

Eic'-i-as 183 

Ni-cos'-tra-tus 394 

Nos'-sis 184 

O-NES'-TES 239 

O-NO-MAO'-RI-TUS 137 

Pal'-a-des 240 

Par-men'-i-des 382 

Par-me'ni'on 239 

Paul the Si-len'-ti-a-ry * . . . 242 

Per'-i-cles 436 

Per'-ses 158 

Ph^d'-i-mus 183 

Pele'-do 428 



PAGl 

Phe-rec'-ra-tes 344 

Pher-e-cy'-des of Le'-ros 463 

Phi-le'-mon 406 

Phil'-ip of Thes-sa-lo-ni'-ca 238 

Phi-lip'-pi-de3 411 

Phi-lip'-pus 238 

Phi-lo-de'-mus 236 

Phi-los'-tra-tus 240 

Phi-lon'-i-des 346 

Phce-nic'-i-des 394 

Phor'-mis 333 

Phryn'-i-chus 248, 347 

Pin'-dar 122 

Pi-sis'-tra-tus 436 

Pla'-to the Poet. 342 

Pla'-to the Philosopher 429 

Plu'-tarch 483 

Po-lyb'-i-us 481 

po-lys'-tra-tus 227 

Po-si-dip'-pus 412 

Prat'-i-nas 251 

Pyr'-rho 433 

Py-thag'-o-ras. 423 

Rhi-a'-nus 208 

Ru-fi'-nus 240 

Sap'-pho 91 

Sim'-mi-as 149 

Si-mon'-i-des 115 

Soc'-ra-tes 426 

So'-lon 89 

Soph'-o-cles 269 

Sot'-a-des 397 

Ste-sich'-o-rus , 84 

Stra'-to 240 

Stra'-ton. 392 

Su-sa'-ri-on 327 

Ter-pan'-der 83 

Tha'-les 415 

The-mis'-to-cles 436 

The-oc'-ri-tus 164 

The-o-dec'-tes 325 

The-og'-nis 101 

The-oph'-i-lus 398 

The-o-pom'-pus 348 

Thes'-pis 248 

Thu-cyd'-i-des 473 

Ti-mo'-cles 398 

Tul'-li-tjs Gem'-i-nus 239 

Tym'-nes 226 

Tyr-t^'-us 77 

Xan'-thus 466 

Xe-nar'-chus 438 

Xe-no the Elder 438 

Xe-no the Younger 438 

Xen'-o-cles 400 

Xex-oc'-ri-tes 239 

Xe-noph'-a-nes 438 

Xen'-o-phon 478 

Ze'no 428 

Zo'-nas of Sardis 237 



CONTENTS 



LECTUKE THE FIRST. 



FAGS 

Introduction 21 



LECTUKE THE SECOND. 

TRANSLATORS. 

Homer 43 

Hymn to Apollo Elton 44 

Contest between Ulysses and Thersites Pope 51 

Parting Interview of Hector and Andromache Elton 53 

Embassy of Ulysses, Ajax, and Phoenix to Achilles. .Pope 56 

Battle of the Gods Elton.,. 60 

Achilles Going Forth to Battle ibid. 61 

Suit of Priam to Achilles Pope 63 

Grot of Calypso ibid. 65 



LECTURE THE THIRD. 

Hesiod 69 

Creation of Pandora. Elton. 72 

Dispensations of Providence, to the Just and the Unjust . ibid. 74 

Battle of the Giants. ibid. 75 

Tyrt^us 77 

War Elegy . . . , Elton 78 

Archilochus 79 

Exhortation to Fortitude under Affliction Elton 82 

On an Eclipse of the Sun ibid. 82 

Equanimity ibid. 82 

Two Military Portraits Merivale 83 

The Storm. . . . ibid. 83 

The Mind of Man ibid. 83 

Life and Death ibid. 83 

Terpander 83 

Alcman 84 

To Megalostrata Merivale 84 

A Fragment .Thos. Campbell 84 

Stesichorus # 84 

The Sacrifice of Tyndarus H. N. Coleridge 85 



x CONTENTS. 

TRANSLATORS. PAGB 

Voyage of the Sun Merivale 85 

The Procession ibid. 86 

A Fragment Langhorne 86 

Aloeus 86 

A Convivial Song Merivale 8*7 

A Convivial Song ibid. 87 

The Storm ibid. 88 

The Poor Fisherman W. Hay 88 

Poverty Merivale 88 

The Spoils of War ibid. 88 

The Constitution of a State , Sir Wm. Jones 89 

J3sop 89 

Death the Sovereign Remedy Robt. Bland.. 89 

Solon , 89 

Justice Merivale 90 

The Constitution of Athens ibid. 90 

A Fragment Langhorne 90 

Remembrance after Death Merivale 90 



LECTUKE THE FOUKTH. 

Sappho , 91 

Ode to Venus Elton 93 

To a Girl Beloved ibid. 94 

An Illiterate "Woman Robt. Bland. 95 

Fragments Ch. North — Th. Moore — Merivale. . 95 

Inscriptions » Elton 96 

Eeinna 97 

Epitaph on Myrtis of Mitylene .Elton 97 

Another on the same ibid. 98 

Ode to Rome ibid. 98 

MlHNERMTJS 99 

Youth and Age H. N Coleridge 99 

Shortness of Life Elton 99 

Ibtcus 100 

The Influence of Spring H.N. Coleridge. . . . 100 

Theognis 101 

On Friendship Elton 101 

Arguments for Social Enjoyment ibid. 102 

Return to my Native Land J. H. Frere. 103 

Youth and Age Robt. Bland. 104 

Poverty J. H. Frere 104 

Friends and Foes ibid. 104 

Anacreon 105 

The Dove Dr. Johnson 105 

To a Painter Elton 108 

Cupid Benighted Thos. Moore 109 

A Dream Elton 110 

Return of Spring ibid. Ill 

Beauty , ThoS. Moore Ill 



CONTENTS. xi 

TRANSLATORS. PAGE 

The Rose. .....' Thos. Moore Ill 

Folly of Avariee.. ibid. 112 

Cupid and the Bee ibid. 112 

Drinking ibid. 113 

Happy Life Cowley 113 

Convivial .Fawhes 114 



LECTUKE THE FIFTH. 

SlMONIDES.. ...... .*.,.....,.... 115 

Lamentation of Danse. Elton 118 

The Miseries of Life. Bland 118 

Virtue Elton 119 

Inscription on Anacreon. . « Hay 119 

" On Those who Fell at Thermopylae Bland 120 

" On the same ibid. .. 120 

" On Cimon's Land and Sea Victories Merivale. 120 

" On Those who Fell at Eurymedon ibid. 121 

" On the Death of Hipparchus ibid. 121 

" On the Daughter of Hippias ibid. 121 

" On a Statue of Cupid by Praxiteles. . . . .Hodgson 121 

" On a Cenotaph ibid. 121 

Fragments Merivale 122 

Pindar 122 

The First Pythian Ode Gary 127 

Extract from the Second Olympian Ode A. Moore. 132 

" From the Fourteenth Olympian Ode Gary 133 

" From the Third Nemean Ode ibid. 134 

" From the Eighth Nemean Ode. ibid. 135 

To the Sun under an Eclipse. — A Fragment Blackwood 136 



LECTUKE THE SIXTH. 

Onomacritus 137 

Visit of the Argonauts to the Cave of Chiron Elton 139 

The Orphic Remains •. . . ibid. 141 

To the Moon ibid. 142 

From the Lithics ibid. 142 

Bacchylides 143 

An Anacreontic. Merivale 143 

Peace Bland. 144 

On the Death of a Child. Merivale. 144 

The Husbandman's Offering. ibid. 144 

Fragments ibid. 144 

Empedocxes 145 

Epitaph on a Physician . . Merivale 147 

Euenus 147 

The Vine and the Goat .Merivale 147 



xii CONTENTS. 

TRANSLATORS. PAGE 

The Swallow and the Grasshopper Merivale 147 

Contradiction ibid. 148 

Ariphron 148 

To Health Bland. 149 

SlMMIAS 149 

On Sophocles Addison 149 

Callistratus 150 

Ode to Harmodius Denman 150 

Plato f 151 

The Answer of the Muses to Venus Merivale 151 

On a Rural Image of Pan ibid. 152 

On a sleeping Cupid Bland 152 

A Satyr and a Cupid by a Fountain ibid. 152 

On Dion of Syracuse Merivale 153 

A Lover's Wish T. Moore 153 

The Kiss. .Merivale. 153 

On his Beloved T. Moore. 153 

On Aristophanes.. Merivale. 153 

On the Tomb of Themistocles Cumberland. 153 

Aristotle 154 

Hymn to Virtue Merivale. 154 

On the Tomb of Ajax ibid. 154 

Mnasalcas 155 

• Parody on the Inscription of Aristotle Merivale 155 

Inscriptions Hodgson 155 

Hybrias 155 

The "Warrior's Riches. Campbell 156 

Hermesianax 156 

The Loves of the Greek Poets Cumberland. 156 

Perses 157 

On the Monument of a Daughter ".."... ..Merivale 158 



LECTUKE THE SEVENTH. 

Lycophrox , 161 

Prophecy of the Death of Hector Elton 163 

Theocritus 164 

Character of Ptolemy 'Philadelphus Fawkes 166 

Praises of Ptolemy Philadelphus ibid. .-. 166 

The Syracusian Gossips Elton 169 

The Infant Hercules ibid. 174 

Liberality to Poets Enjoined Polwhele. 175 

Epithalamium of Helen Elton 176 

Epitaphs Blackwood 178 

Aratus 179 

Proem to the Phenomena Elton 179 

Prognostics of "Weather ibid. 181 

DlOTTMUS , 182 

On a Flute-Player Merivale 182 



CONTENTS. xiii 

TRANSLATORS. PAGE 

AsCLEPIADES 182 

On a Picture of Berenice Merivale. 182 

On Hesiod Haygarth 182 

Ph^edimus '• 183 

Heroic Love . . . . Merivale 183 

Nicias 183 

On the Tomb of an Infant Merivale 183 

The Bee Blackwood 183 

Nossis 184 

On an Image of her Daughter Merivale 184 

Love ibid. 184 

On the Picture of Thymarite ibid. 184 

Anyte 184 

On the Entrance to a Cavern Blackwood 185 

On a Grove of Laurel Hodgson 185 

On a Dolphin Cast Ashore ibid. 185 

On a Statue of Venus Merivale 185 

On the Young Virgin Phillida ibid. 186 

On the Maid Antibia May 186 



LECTUEE THE EIGHTH. 

Callimachus 187 

Hymn, on the Bath of Minerva Elton 189 

'On Heraclitus '. Coleridge 193 

The Death of Cleombrotus Merivale 193 

On a Brother and Sister ibid. 193 

The Chase ibid. 194 

Apollonius Rhodius 194 

Sailing of the Argo Elton 196 

Passion of Medea ibid. 197 

Deliberation of Medea , . . ibid. 198 

Medea and Jason in the Temple of Hecate ibid. 200 

Leonidas.,. 203 

Home * Bland. 204 

The Return of Spring to Sailors ibid. 204 

A Mother on her Son ibid. 204 

Inscription on a Boat Merivale. 204 

On a Statue of Anacreon ibid. 205 

On Homer ..Hodgson 205 

On Himself. Merivale. 205 

Cleanthes , 206 

Hymn to Jupiter. Elton 207 

Rhianus 208 

On Human Folly, .Elton 209 

Amatory Epigram ibid. 209 

Ani'agoeas 209 

Cupid's Genealogy Merivale 209 

On Two Cynic Philosophers * ibid. 210 



xiv CONTENTS. 

TRANSLATORS. PAGE 

NlOENETUS 210 

The Precept of Cratinus ...... i . . T. Moore 210 

The Fete Champetre. *.....-.»*...»..... .Merivale 210 

Dioscorides ............ 210 

The Persian Slave to his Master. Merivale 211 

Spartan Virtue ............. .-..,. ibid. 211 

Etjphorion m 211 

On a Corpse "Washed Ashore Merivale. 211 

On Tears ibid. 212 

Damagetes 212 

On a "Wife Dying in her Husband's Absence Merivale 212 

On Two Theban Brothers, Slain in Thrace ibid. 212 



LECTUKE THE OT1STTH. 

Bion , 213 

Elegy on Adonis „ Elton 214 

Hymn to the Evening Star Merivale 21*7 

The Teacher Taught Fawkes 21? 

The Seasons Elton 211 

Shortness of Life ; ibid. 218 

Friendship . Fawkes. 218 

Moschus 219 

Lament for Bion Elton. 220 

Alpheus and Arethusa. Bland 223 

The Contrast ........."........ ibid. '. 224 

A Mother Lamenting her Children Fawkes. 224 

NlCANDER. . 224 

Of the Serpent Cerastes Elton 225 

From the Counter-Poisons ibid. 226 

Tymnes 226 

On One who Died in a Foreign Country Merivale 22? 

Spartan Virtue , ibid. 22? 

POLYSTRATUS 22? 

On the Destruction of Corinth.. .Merivale. 22? 

Antipater of Sidon .......... 1 ............. . 22? 

On Orpheus ....... ."... ...Bland 228 

On Homer's Birth Merivale... 228 

On Sappho Hodgson.. 228 

On Erinna Merivale. 229 

On Anaereon Bland. 229 

On Pindar ; .Merivale 229 

The Widow's Offering ibid. 229 

The Honest Shepherd Prior 229 

Archias 230 

Life and Death. .Bland.. 230 

On a Shipwrecked Mariner Wrangham 230 

On an Old Race Horse '. Hay 230 

Meleager 231 

The Return of Spring Bland. 232 



CONTENTS. xv 



TRANSLATORS. PAGE 

..T.Moore 232 



The Din of Love ibid. *. 233 

To his Mistress Sleeping Merivale 233 

The Vow ibid. 233 

The Comparison Shepherd 234 

The Gifts of the Graces Keen 234 

Music and Beauty , .Merivale 234 

The Sailor's Keturn ibid. 234 

Niobe ibid. 235 

The Morning Star ibid. 235 

Epitaph on a Young Bride ibid. 235 

Epitaph on Heliodora ibid. 235 

Epitaph on iEsigenes ibid. 236 

Epitaph on Meleager of Gadara ibid. 236 

Philodemus 236 

Invitation to the Anniversary of Epicurus Merivale. 23? 

Zonas 237 

On a Shipwrecked Mariner Bland. 237 

Antiphilus 237 

On an Ancient Oak Merivale 237 

Antipater of Thessalonica 238 

Greek Poetesses C. North 238 

Xenocrites . . . . 4 239 

On a Daughter Drowned at Sea Bland. 239 

Caephtlides 240 

On a Happy Old Man Bland. 240 

Palladus 241 

All the World 's a Stage Merivale 241 

Democharis .' 242 

On the Picture of Sappho Hodgson 242 



LECTUEE THE TENTH. 

Epic and Dramatic Poetry Compared 243 

Origin of the Drama ' 245 

Thespis 246 

Phrynichus 246 

Chxerilus 251 

Pratinas 251 

Lines on the Falling of the Platform Cumberland. 251 

uEschylus 251 

Invocation of Prometheus to the Air Bulwer 255 

Prometheus' Reply to Ocean ibid. 1 255 

Prometheus Hurled into the "Watery Abyss .Potter 257 

Clytemnestra's Reply. ibid. 257 

Lament for the Loss of Helen ibid. 259 

Scene from the Persians ibid. 260 



xri CONTENTS. 



LECTUKE THE ELEVENTH. 

TRANSLATORS. PAGE 

Sophocles 269 

Scene from the Antigone Bulwer 278 

The Pythian Races ibid. 290 

Chorus from The Trachiniae.. ..Potter 291 

Ajax's Dying Speech ibid. 293 

Chorus of Sailors from Philoctetes Cumberland. 295 

Comparison between JEschylus and Sophocles 296 



LECTUKE THE TWELFTH, 

Euripides ....." 299 

Lines from the Cyclops Cumberland. ...... 305 

Part of a Chorus in the Hecuba , ibid. 306 

Part of a Chorus in the Alcestes Chapman 306 

The Death of Alcestes Potter. 307 

Scene from the Medea ibid. 309 

Phaedra's Passion ..Cumberland 314 

Scene from the Hecuba Potter 315 

Scene from the Orestes ibid. 318 

Fragments Rogers 321 

Neophron 322 

Ion 322 

Aristarchus 323 

Ach^us . 323 

Carcinus 323 

Xenocles 323 

Agathon 323 

Ch^eremon 324 

Theodectes 325 



LECTUKE THE THIRTEENTH. 

Susarion 327 

Myllus 329 

Enetes 329 

Euxonides 329 

Chiomdes 329 

Magnes 329 

Ecphantides 330 

Epicharmus 330 

Marriage Cumberland. 332 

Genealogies ibid. 332 

Moral Maxims ibid. 332 

Phormis , 333 

Dlnolochus 333 



CONTENTS. ' X vii 

TRANSLATORS. PAGE 

Cratinus 335 

Description by Aristophanes Brown 837 

Eupolis 338 

Altered Condition of Athens Cumberland. 339 

The Parasite ibid. 339 

Crates 340 

On Old Age Cumberland. 341 

Plato ! 342 

Address to a Statue of Mercury Cumberland. 343 

The Tomb of Themistocles ibid. 343 

Dialogue between a Father and a Sophist ibid. 343 

Pherecrates 344 

On Old Age Cumberland. 344 

Satire upon Woman ibid. 345 

Scene from the Miners ibid. 345 

Philonides 346 

Fragment Cumberland. 346 



LECTUKE THE FOUKTEENTH. 

Aristophanes S51 

Scene from the Acharnians Cumberland. 359 

Scene from the Knights Mitchell 362 

Parabasis from the same. . . . ; ibid. 364 

Choral Hymn ibid. 365 

Scene from the Clouds Cumberland. 368 

Chorus from the Peace Mitchell. 313 

Parabasis from the Birds Frere 375 



LECTUBE THE FIFTEENTH. 

The Middle Comedy. 379 

Philippus 381 

Loquacity Cumberland. 381 

Eubulus 381 

Bacchus' Directions not to Abuse his Blessings Cumberland. 381 

Anasandrides 382 

Old Age Cumberland. 383 

Antiphanes 384 

Satire upon "Woman * Cumberland. 384 

Dialogue between a Traveller and the King of Cyprus ibid. 385 

Raillery from a Servant of his Master ibid. 385 

Conscience the Best Law ibid. 386 

No Life without Love ibid. 386 

Not Lost, but Gone Before ibid. 386 

Deatn ibid. 386 

The Parasite ibid. 386 

Lines on a Fountain ibid. 386 

2 



xviii 60NTENTS. 

translators. page 

Aristophon 387 

Marriage Cumberland. 887 

Love ibid. .. . 388 

The Disciples of Pythagoras ibid. 388 

Clearchus 388 

Drunkenness Cumberland. 889 

Epicrates 389 

Disquisitions of the Academy Cumberland. 890 

Mneslmachus 391 

A Company of Banditti Cumberland. 392 

Straton 392 

Conceited Humor of a Cook .Cumberland. 392 

Moschion 393 

The Exile '. . . Cumberland. 393 

The Dead ibid. 393 

Alexis 394 

Gluttons and Drunkards .- Cumberland. 394 

The Epicureans , . ibid. 395 

Parents and Children ibid. 396 

"Wickedness of Woman ibid. 396 

Love , .... ibid. 397 

Sotades 397 

Unhappy Fate of Genius Cumberland. 398 

Theophilus 398 

Love Cumberland. 398 

Tlmocles 399 

Eloquence of Demosthenes Cumberland. 399 

Moral Use of the Tragic Drama ibid. 399 

The New Comedy 400 

Menander ~ 401 

Moral Maxims Cumberland. 403 

Misanthropy and Discontent ibid. 403 

Of all Creatures Man is Most Unhappy ibid. 404 

Lustration ibid. 404 

"Woman and Marriage ibid. 404 

Life ibid. 405 

Envy ibid. 405 

Advice to the Covetous ibid. 405 

The Rich not Happier than Others ibid. 406 

Consolation in Misfortune ibid. 406 

Philemon 406 

Moral Maxims Cumberland. 408 

Effect of Riches ibid. 408 

Truth .« ibid. 408 

The Just Man ibid. 408 

The Sovereign Good ibid. 409 

Hopeless Anguish ibid. 409 

A Word to the Idle and Thoughtless ibid. 409 

Diphilus 410 

Law against Spendthrifts Cumberland 410 

Apollodorus 411 

Fragments Cumberland. 411 

A Friendly Welcome ibid. 411 



CONTENTS. xix 

LECTUEE THE SIXTEENTH. 

PAGE 

Philosophy 41 3 

Thales *. 415 

Anaximandek 416 

Anaximenes 417 

Heraclitus 418 

Anaxagoras 419 

Archelaus 421 

Pythagoras 423 

Socrates 426 

Aristippus 427 

Euclid' 428 

Ph^do 428 

Antisthenes 428 

Zeno 428 

Chrtsippus 429 

Plato 429 

Arcesilaus 430 

Carneades 430 

Aristotle 430 

Xenophanes 432 

Epicdrus 432 

Pyrrho 433 



LECTUEE THE SEVENTEENTH. 

Oratory 434 

Pisistratus 436 

Themistocles 436 

Pericles 437 

Antiphox 440 

Andocides 442 

Lysias 442 

Isocrates 444 

Is^eus 446 

Lycurgus 447 

Demosthenes 448 

JEschines >. 454 

Hyperides 456 

Demades. * 457 

DlNARCHTJS 457 

Demetrius Phalereus 457 



LECTUEE THE EIGHTEENTH. 

History 459 

Pherecydes 463 

Cadmus , 464 



xx CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Hecatjsus 464 

• Acusilaus s *..... 465 

Charon 465 

Xanthus 466 

Hellanicus *. 466 

Herodotus 467 

Thucydides 413 

Xenophon '. 478 

Ctesias 480 

poltbids 481 

Diodorus Siculus 482 

Dionysius of Halicarnassus ._ 483 

Plutarch 483 

Arrian 484 

Appian 484 

Dion Cassius 485 

^Elian 485 



tuinxt tjrt fm\. 



INTRODUCTION. 

OF all the countries of Ancient Europe, none was so advantageously 
situated as Greece. On the eastern side the iEgean sea, studded with 
islands, brought it into immediate contact with Asia Minor and the fron- 
tier of Phoenicia ; and the voyage to JEgypt, across the Mediterranean, 
though it afforded not so many resting places for the mariner, was neither 
long nor difficult. Towards the west, the passage to Italy was both short 
and easy, being interrupted only by the Adriatic. 

This interesting country, according to information received from both 
sacred history and tradition, was peopled at an earlier period than 
any other portion of the western world. The first inhabitants were 
tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose earliest approaches to civil- 
ization were associations for mutual defence against the robber-tribes, 
and the Phoenician pirates, whose vessels swept the coast of the ^Egean, 
to seize unsuspecting men and women, and reduce them to slavery. 
Of these tribes the Pelasgi were the most conspicuous, and the first 
that acquired any ascendancy in Greece. They were, doubtless, of 
Asiatic origin, and their earliest permanent settlements were Sicyon 
and Argos, both within the Peloponnesus. The former was founded 
about 2000 A. C, and the latter two centuries afterwards. Of the ad- 
venturers who formed the first of these settlements, Inachus, a contem- 
porary of the Jewish patriarch Abraham, was the leader; but of his his- 
tory nothing certain is known. From the Peloponnesus, the Pelasgi 
extended themselves northward to Attica, Boeotia, and Thessaly, under 
different leaders, and here learned to apply themselves to agriculture, and 
continued to flourish undisturbed until 1500 A.C. 

The Pelasgi were followed by the Hellenes, a milder and more humane 
race, who first appeared on Mount Parnassus, in Phocis, under Deucalion, 
about 1433 A.C. Being, however, soon after driven thence by a flood, 
they migrated into Thessaly, and expelled the Pelasgi from that territory. 
From this period the Hellenes, who derived their name from Hellen, 
one of the sons of Deucalion, rapidly increased, and finally extended their 



22 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. I. 

dominion over the greater part of Greece, dispossessing the more ancient 
race, who retained only the mountainous parts of Arcadia, and the land 
of Dodona. Numbers of the Pelasgi, thus driven from their own coun- 
try, emigrated into Italy, and there laid the foundation of those Etruscan 
States which afterwards held so prominent a place in the history of that 
peninsula. 

The Hellenic race soon became divided into four great branches — the 
.ZEolians, the Dorians, the Ionians, and the Achaeans, each of which, in 
the historic age of Greece, was characterized by many strong and marked 
peculiarities of dialect, customs, political government, and we may, 
perhaps, add religion ; or, at least heroic traditions, though these appear 
to be connected more with the localities in which they settled, than with 
the stock from which they sprung. Of these different races, the first 
and second received their names from iEolis and Dorus, two of the sons 
of Hellen, and the third and fourth from his grandsons, Ion and Achaeus. 

The attractive features of the Grecian territory becoming, about this 
time known throughout the more advanced nations of the east, many 
adventurers thence flocked thither, and, from the middle of the sixteenth 
to the middle of the fourteenth century before the Christian era, established 
colonial settlements in the country. These colonists were chiefly from 
Egypt, Phoenicia, and Phrygia ; and as they brought with them the im- 
provements in arts and sciences that had been made in their respective 
countries, they greatly advanced the progress of civilization in Greece. 

The first of these was an Egyptian colony from Sais, in the Delta, and 
was led by Cecrops into Attica, 1550 A.C. This prince is said to have 
brought with him, and introduced into the country, the institution of 
marriage and the first elements of civilization. A second colony, from 
Lower Egypt, was led by Danaeus, who fled from a brother's enmity, and 
settled in Argos, 1500 A.C. The fable of his fifty daughters is well 
known ; but its historical foundation is altogether uncertain. 

About the same time that Danaeus settled in Argos, Cadmus, a Phoe- 
nician, led a colony into Boeotia, and founded Thebes. To this adven- 
turer the Greeks are indebted for the first introduction of alphabetical 
characters into their country. ' Phrygia also, the north-western kingdom 
of Asia Minor, contributed, at this time, her share towards the improve- 
ment of the Greeks. Pelops, a prince of that country, led a colony into 
Peloponnesus, 1400 A.C. ; and though he did not acquire so large a king- 
dom as the other adventurers just mentioned, yet his descendants, by in- 
termarriages with the royal families of Argos and Lacedsemon, acquired 
such permanent influence, that they became supreme over the peninsula, 
and gave it the name of their great ancestor. 

But, notwithstanding the presence of these more enlightened settlers, 
several circumstances still contributed to impede the progress of Grecian 
civilization. The coasts of the country were temptingly exposed to the 
Phoenicians, the Carians, and the islanders of the iEgean, who at first 



1225 A.C.] INTRODUCTION. 23 

made the art of navigation subservient to piracy rather than commerce ; 
and the Thracians, the Amazons, and other barbarous tribes from the 
north, made frequent incursions into the exposed Hellenic provinces. To 
resist these incursions, the celebrated Aniphyctionic league was founded 
by Amphyction, a descendant of Deucalion ; and the confederation thus 
formed was soon found to be so beneficial, that it gradually received fresh 
accessions, until it soon embraced the greater part of the States of Greece. 
The deputies to the council representing this league met semi-annually, 
and alternately at Delphi and Thermopylae. 

Greece was also, at this period, infested with bands of robbers, who 
deemed plunder an honorable profession, and some of whom exercised the 
most atrocious cruelties on their hapless victims. These freebooters 
eventually became so bold and desperate, as to render their destruction 
the only security for the prosperity of Greece ; and the adventurers who 
acquired most fame in the contest that followed were Perseus, Hercules, 
Bellerophon, Theseus, and Castor and Pollux, whose romantic histories 
form a very large portion of that part of Grecian mythology which was 
of native origin. 

In this early and uncertain period of Grecian history, the most cele- 
brated events are the Argonautic Expedition, the Theban Wars, the 
Siege of Troy, the Return of tJie Heraclidce, and the Migration of the 
Ionians and JEolian Colonies to Asia Minor. 

What was the real nature, and what were the objects of the Argo- 
nautic expedition, it is very difficult to discover. It appears certain, how- 
ever, that in the thirteenth century before the Christian era, a Thessalian 
prince, named Jason, collected the young chivalry of Greece, and sailed 
on an expedition, partly commercial and partly piratical, in a ship called 
the Argo, to the eastern shores of the Euxine sea. After a series of 
wild and romantic adventures, and many severe contests with the natives, 
the Argonauts succeeded in planting a colony in Colchis ; and on their 
return, Jason, their leader and chief, brought Medea, a princess of that 
country, home with him to Thessaly. But though impenetrable darkness 
veils the nature of this expedition, there can be no doubt as to the con- 
sequences that resulted from it. From the era of the Argonauts, we 
discover among the Greeks not only a more daring and more enlarged 
spirit of enterprize, but a more decisive and rapid progress towards civil- 
ization and humanity. 

Cadmus had no sooner given permanence to his new settlement in 
Bceotia, than he established at Thebes the worship of Bacchus ; and the 
mythology of the country is full of the miseries and crimes that debased 
and eventually ruined the family of the founder of the State. (Edipus, 
the most remarkable of the descendants of Cadmus, having been removed 



24 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. I. 

from his throne for an involuntary series of criminal acts, his sons, 
Etiocles and Polynices, seized the kingdom, and agreed to reign alter- 
nately. Etiocles afterwards refused to conform to the terms of the 
agreement ; and Polynices being joined by six of the most eminent gen- 
erals of Greece, commenced the memorable war of The Seven against 
Thebes. This event occurred 1225 A.C., and the result was entirely 
favorable to the allies. Etiocles and Polynices fell by mutual wounds, 
and Creon, who succeeded to the Theban throne, routed the confederate 
forces, five of whose leaders were left dead on the field. After the lapse 
of about ten years, the sons of the allied princes, called the Epigoni, 
marched against Thebes, to revenge the death of their fathers; and 
a sanguinary conflict ensuing, the Thebans were routed with great 
slaughter, their leaders slain, and their city captured. These wars ren- 
dered the Thebans, for a long time, odious to the rest of the Greeks ; 
and we shall see that they repaid this hatred by infidelity to the Hellenic 
cause during the Persian war. 

In a plundering expedition of the Pelopidge to the Phrygian cost, a 
young prince named Podarces, was carried away captive, and detained 
until a large ransom was paid for his liberation. From this circumstance 
he was afterwards called Priam, or " the ransomed." At a subsequent 
period, Priam having become king of Troy, sent his son Paris, or Alexander, 
as an ambassador to the Peloponnesian princes, probably to negotiate a 
peace. By his winning address and other accomplishments, the young 
prince beguiled Helen, the beautiful wife of Men^elaus, king of Sparta, of 
her affections, and conveyed her with some valuable treasures to Troy. 
The injured husband applied to his countrymen to aid him in seeking such 
redress as the outrage demanded, and a large army was accordingly raised 
by the confederate kings of the country, and placed under the command 
of Agamemnon, the brother of Menelaus. 

Troy was at this time the capital of an extensive and powerful king- 
dom, and possessed, besides its own subjects, many allies. It could 
muster, according to Homer, an army of fifty thousand men, while its 
walls were sufficiently strong to defy the imperfect machine then used in 
sieges, and its citadel was impregnable. Against this powerful kingdom 
the Greek princes undertook their expedition, with an army of one hun- 
dred thousand men, conveyed to the enemies coast in eleven hundred 
and eighty-six ships. These ships were very rudely constructed and 
fitted out, having only half decks, and using stones for an anchor : they 
were rowed by the common soldiers, and when they reached their destina- 
tion, were hauled upon land, and many of them constructed into a camp. 
The war was protracted for ten years, during which many battles were 
fought under the walls of Troy ; and the military weapons used were, in 
every respect, similar to those employed by the ancient Egyptians. The 
city was finally taken by stratagem, 1183 A.C., and razed to the ground, 



1116A.C] INTRODUCTION. 25 

i — many of the inhabitants being slain or taken prisoners, whilst those 
that escaped were forced to become exiles in distant lands. The victors, 
however, suffered nearly as much as the vanquished ; for during the pro- 
tracted absence of the chiefs, usurpers, aided by faithless wives, and the 
rising ambition of" youthful aspirants to distinction, seized upon many of 
their thrones, and obtained possession of their kingdoms. These circum- 
stances necessarily led to fierce wars and intestine commotions, which 
again greatly retarded the progress of Grecian civilization. 

The posterity of Pelops, as we have already observed, obtained by art 
and address the possession of the entire Pelopennosus, to the exclusion 
of the more ancient dynasties. Their most formidable rivals were the 
Perseidae, who claimed through their ancestor, Perseus, the honor of a 
divine descent, and who could boast of having in their family such heroes 
as Perseus, Bellerophon, and Hercules. From the last of these heroes, a 
powerful branch of the Perseid family received the name of the Hera- 
clidae. They were dreaded by the Pelopid sovereigns, and hence were 
persecuted by them, and finally driven into exile. These exiles first 
repaired to Athens, where they were hospitably received, and for some 
time kindly entertained ; but desirous of obtaining an independent 
abode, they retired to the mountainous district of Doris, and soon became 
masters of that wild and barren province. 

Amid the Dorian mountains, which were ill calculated to satisfy men 
whose ancestors had inherited the fertile plains of the Peloponnesus, the 
Heraclidae remained, awaiting an opportunity to regain possession of 
their ancient inheritance. The confusion with which the Trojan war 
filled all Greece, and to which we have just alluded, at length presented 
such opportunity ; and appointing Naupactus, on the Corinthian gulf, as 
their rendezvous, they there met, and were soon joined by a body of 
JStolians, and several of the Dorian tribes. Every circumstance now 
favored the enterprise. A prosperous gale wafted their armament to the 
eastern coast of the Peloponnesus — by secret intrigue a party was gained 
in Lacedaemon — Laconia was betrayed into the hands of the invaders — 
Argolis, Messenia, Elis, and Corinth, submitted to their authority — leav- 
ing, in the whole peninsula, only the mountainous district of Arcadia, 
and the coast province of Achaia, unsubdued. The revolution was com- 
plete ; and though effected with little bloodshed, it was not without great 
oppression of the ancient inhabitants, many of whom migrated 1 to other 
parts of Greece, while those who remained were reduced to the most ab- 
ject slavery. The return of the Heraclidae occurred about 1116 A.C. 

The last of the great event, that distinguished the uncertain period of 
Grecian history to which our attention has hitherto been directed, was the 
establishment ef the iEolian and Ionian colonies in Asia Minor. The 
motives which induced their migration thither, and the spirit of enterprise 



26 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. L 

and independence which they carried with them into their new settlements, 
soon raised them to the most commanding position. Their commerce, 
within less than a century, exceeded that of the parent state, and in 
learning and the arts they equally excelled. The earliest of the Grecian 
poets, Homer and Hesiod, and Thales and Pythagoras, their first philos- 
ophers, were all natives of the country. 

The iEolian emigration occurred 1124 A.C. Passing out of the 
Peloponnesus, they first established themselves in Thrace, whence, after 
the first generation had passed away, they removed to Asia, and occupied 
the coast of Mysia and Caria, to which they gave the name of iEolia. 
They acquired possession, also, of the islands of Lesbos, Tenedos, and a 
large cluster of smaller islands in the vicinity. They erected on the main 
land twelve cities, of which Cyme and Smyrna were the chief. The latter 
city flourished in great splendor for over five centuries; but in 600 A.C. 
it was destroyed by the Lydians, and was not rebuilt until four hundred 
years afterwards, when it became an important and prosperous Macedo- 
nian colony. The iEolian cities maintained their independence until 
Lydia was conquered by Cyrus the Great, when those on the main land 
were reduced under the power of the Persian monarchy. 

The Ionian migration took place 1044 A.C. about eighty years after 
the JEolian. It was the largest and most important migration that ever 
left Greece ; and, very fortunately, many of the details of its history have 
been preserved. It originated in the abolition of royalty at Athens; 
the younger sons of Codrus, not being willing to live as private citizens, 
resolved to lead a colony into Asia, and there form a new settlement. 
They were readily joined by the Ionian exiles from the northern Peloponne- 
sus, who were straitened for corn in Attica, and by large bands of emigrants 
from the neighboring States, who were not satisfied with the political 
state of things at home. With a liberal supply of ships and munitions 
of war, they set sail, and pursuing their voyage to Asia Minor, they 
landed on the coast south of iEolis. After a sanguinary struggle of 
many months, the barbarian natives were compelled to resign their lands 
to the intruders ; and the Ionians thus acquired possession of the whole 
of the valuable district between Miletus and Mount Sipylus. 

Having thus obtained possession of the country, the Ionians at once 
began to build cities, and soon built Ephesus, Erythras, Clazomense, 
Colophon, Myus, Miletus, Priene, Phocaea, Lebedos, Samos, Teos, and 
Chios, all of which were united by an Amphictyonic confederacy. Of 
these colonies Miletus was the chief, though Ephesus was the most cele- 
brated of the cities. The deputies from these colonies met in Amphicty- 
onic council at stated times, in a temple of Neptune, erected on the 
headland of Mycale, and deliberated on all matters that affected the 
Ionian league ; but the council never interfered with the domestic govern- 
ment of the sgyeral cities. They also celebrated festivals and public 
games, which rivalled, in magnificence, those of the parent country. In 



XOOOA.C. INTRODUCTION. 27 

the midst of their prosperity, the Ionian cities "became involved in a long 
and arduous struggle with the kingdom of Lydia, which continued, almost 
without intermission, until both eventually became absorbed in the rising 
greatness of the Persian empire. 

From the early condition of Greece to which our attention has hitherto 
been directed, and which may properly be called the first period of the 
history of that country, we now-proceed to notice those events and inci- 
dents in her history, upon which more reliance can be placed. The 
origin of the kingdom of Sparta, and the institutions of Lycurgus, will first 
demand our attention ; after which we shall briefly review the early his- 
tory of Athens. This second period in the history of Greece embraces 
nearly five hundred years, and extends from about 1000 A.C. down to 
the final expulsion of Hippius, 510 A.C. 

After the Heraclidse, on their return into the Peloponnesus, had 
gained possession of the country, the associated princes divided the con- 
quered provinces among themselves by lot. To the share of Aristodemus 
Laconia fell ; and he, at his death, left the kingdom to his twin sons, 
Eurysthenes and Procles, who reigned conjointly ; and from that time 
forward — 1004 A.C. — Sparta was governed by two kings. During the 
two centuries that followed the accession of Eurysthenes and Procles to 
the throne of Sparta, the Spartans were engaged in tedious wars with the 
Argives, and their State was also agitated by domestic contests, resulting 
from the unequal division of property, the ambition of rival nobles, and 
the diminished power of the kings. In this emergency Lycurgus, in 
880 A.C, obtained the superior power as guardian of his nephew Chare- 
laus, and at once directed his attention to the establishment of a system 
of law, which would prevent the recurrence of such disorders. 

The principal object of the institutions of Lycurgus, was to insure the 
continuance of the Spartans as a dominant military caste, by perpetuating 
a race of athletic and warlike men ; and hence his laws referred rather 
to domestic life and physical education than to the constitution of the 
State, or the form of its government. To effect this important purpose, 
however, great skill and address were requisite ; as the Spartan nobility, 
especially the youthful portion of them, were violently opposed to any 
change by which their power and influence would be curtailed. To 
gratify them, therefore, he retained the caste between the Spartans and 
Laconians, and the double line of kings as leaders in war and first magis- 
trates in peace. But to restrain the power of the latter he instituted a 
senate of thirty members, to which the kings belonged, and over whose 
deliberations one of them presided ; though with no more authority than 
the other members. To increase the authority, and add to the respectabil- 
ity of the senatorial body, no citizen was eligible to a seat in that body who 
did not sustain an unblemished character, and had not passed the sixtieth 



28 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. L 

year of his age. The court of the Ephori, though frequently attributed 
to LycurguSj was not founded until about one hundred and fifty years 
after that legislator's death. The power of the ephori was entirely of a 
negative character, being very similar to that of the tribunes at Rome. 

The domestic regulations which Lycurgus introduced into Sparta were 
of much more importance, and exerted a much greater influence over the 
community, than his public institutions. The first of these was the 
division of all the land of Sparta and Laconia into thirty-nine equal 
parts, and the appropriation of one of these parts to each of the citizens. 
He next banished the use of gold and silver money from the State, and 
introduced in its place an iron currency, so heavy and unwieldy as to be 
of no service in any other part of Greece. The third of his regulations 
was the division of all the citizens into families of fifteen persons each, 
and the arrangement of public tables, at which all, without distinction, 
.were required to take their meals. Their food was of the simplest kind, 
and as private tables were unknown, every species of luxury was thus 
entirely banished from the Spartan community. Indeed, every arrange- 
ment of Lycurgus had a direct tendency towards the formation of a 
military commonwealth ; and as no citizen was permitted to follow any 
trade or occupation of a domestic nature, these being confined exclusively 
to their Helots or slaves, their excessive leisure threw them constantly 
together in the porticoes, or other public places, where their entire time 
was passed. 

Sparta, their capital city, was built on a series of hills, whose outlines 
were varied and romantic, along the right bank of the Eurotas, within 
sight of the chain of Mount Taygetum. It was not originally surrounded 
with walls, but the highest of its eminences served as a citadel; and 
round this hill were ranged five towns, separated by corridor walls, 
occupied by the five Spartan tribes. The great square or forum, in 
which the principal streets of those towns terminated, was embellished 
with temples and statues : it contained also the edifices in which the 
senate, the ephori, and other bodies of Spartan magistrates were accus- 
tomed to assemble. Here, also, the splendid portico, erected by the 
Spartans from their share of the spoils taken at the battle of Platsea, was 
placed. The roof of this portico, instead of being supported by pillars, 
rested on gigantic statues, representing Persians habited in flowing robes. 
On the highest of the eminences stood a temple of Minerva, which, as 
well as the grove that surrounded it, had the privileges of an asylum. It 
was built of brass, destitute of ornaments, and like most of the other 
public edifices of the city, had no pretensions to architectural beauty. 

More than a century elapsed after the formation of the institution of 
Lycurgus, before the Spartans were brought in hostile contact with any 
of the neighboring Grecian States. At length, however, in 743 A.C., a 
war broke out between them and their neighbors, the Messenians, which, 
after a long series of sanguinary engagements, whose horrors were aggra- 



1550 A.C.] INTRODUCTION. 29 

vated by cruel superstitions, the Messenians were totally subdued, and 
compelled to surrender half the revenue of their lands to the Spartans. 
The victors used their triumph in the most offensively oppressive man- 
ner ; until the Messenians, no longer able to bear the degradation of their 
servile condition, were driven to revolt. Aristomenes, the worthy Mes- 
senian leader in this second contest with the Spartans, was descended 
from the ancient line of Messenian kings ; and so rapid and decisive 
were his successes, that the Spartans, in despair, sought the advice of the 
oracle, and received the mortifying response that they should solicit a 
general from the Athenians. Ambassadors were accordingly sent to 
Athens to urge this request ; and the Athenians sent them the poet 
Tyrtseus, who, though he had frequently borne arms, had never distin- 
guished himself as a warrior. With his patriotic odes he roused the 
spirit of the Spartan soldiers to the greatest height ; but notwithstanding 
this advantage, Aristomenes found means to protract the defence of his 
country for more than eleven years ; and when Messene was at length 
taken, it was taken by treachery, and not by force of arms. This event 
occurred 671 A.C. ; and from that period Sparta remained in comparative 
peace until the Persian war, strengthening herself, and preparing for the 
conspicuous part she was destined to take in that great contest. 

The kingdom of Athens is generally supposed to have owed its origin 
to Cecrops, an Egyptian, who landed in Attica about 1550 A.C, married 
the daughter of Acteeus, king of the country, and at his death succeeded 
to the crown. He taught the people, who had hitherto led a wandering 
life, to use fixed habitations, divided them into four tribes, and instituted 
the celebrated court of Areopagus. The political history of the State 
does not, however, begin until the reign of Theseus, who succeeded his 
father iEgeus about 1300 A.C. He united the four independent districts 
or tribes into which Attica had been divided by Cecrops, into one body 
politic, and made Athens the seat of government. Among his successors 
the most distirfguished were Amphictyon, the founder of the celebrated 
Amphictyonic council ; Menestheus, who fell before Troy; and Codrus, 
whose generous devotion to the good of his country, in a war between the 
Athenians and the Heraclidae, led to the total abolition of royalty. 

The chief magistrate of Athens, after the abolition of royalty in 1068 
A.C. was styled Archon ; and of the family of Codrus, thirteen archons 
ruled in succession, differing from kings only in being accountable for 
their administration. The first of these archons was Medon, and the 
last was Alcmseon; and after the death of the latter in 752 A.C, the 
duration of the office was limited to ten years ; but the archons were still 
chosen out of the family of Codrus. Under this latter arrangement, 
seven archons succeeded each other ; but the office finally ceased in 682 
A.C. Thenceforward nine annual magistrates were appointed by the 
most powerful of the nobility, and selected not only from the descendants 



30 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. I. 

of Codrus and such foreign princes as had taken refuge in Athens, but 
from those Athenian families which time and accident had raised to 
opulence and distinction. These changes brought, however, no advan- 
tages to the great body of the people, as the equestrian order, so called 
from their fighting on horseback, enjoyed all authority — religious, civil, 
and military. The Athenian populace were, in fact, reduced to a con- 
dition of the most miserable servitude — their lives and fortunes being 
left to the discretion of magistrates, whose usual decisions were in accord- 
ance with party prejudices or their own private interests. 

Groaning under the weight of these oppressions, and observing, at the 
same time, the happy results of the recent institutions established by 
Lycurgus in Sparta, the people of Athens now demanded a new organiza- 
tion of their government. For this purpose Draco, a man of unswerving 
integrity, but of unexampled severity, was chosen in 622 A.C. to prepare 
for them a code of laws. His laws unfortunately, however, bore the im- 
press of his own severe character, — inflicting the punishment of death 
upon every description of crime, whether small or great. But this indis- 
criminate cruelty rendered the whole code inoperative : human nature 
revolted against such legal butchery ; and Draco, in order to avoid the 
public indignation, fled to iEgina, where he soon after died. 

This ineffectual effort to establish a system of laws only encouraged 
the excesses of the aristocratic factions, whose oppressions produced a 
state of perfect anarchy, and excited the most violent indignation. To 
remedy these disorders Solon, a man eminently qualified for this import- 
ant station, was, in 594 A.C. unanimously raised to the dignity of first 
magistrate, legislator, and sovereign arbiter of the State. Descended 
from the ancient kings of Athens, he applied himself in early life to com- 
mercial pursuits, and having by honorable industry acquired a competent 
fortune, he travelled in distant lands in search of knowledge. The emi- 
nence to which he attained was such, that he was reckoned the chief of 
those sages commonly known as the Seven Wise Men of^ Greece. 

Preparatory to the formation of his new constitution, Solon abolished 
all the laws of Draco, except those against murder. He next turned his 
attention to the relation between debtors and creditors, — abolishing the 
debts of the former, and, as an equivalent to the latter, raising the stand- 
ard value of money. He next abolished slavery and imprisonment for 
debt, both of which had led to great abuses and cruelties. He still pre- 
served, however, the ancient local divisions of society, by arranging the citi- 
zens into four classes, according to their respective incomes. The 
first class comprised all those citizens whose income, in grain, exceeded 
five hundred bushels; the second class, those whose income exceeded 
three hundred ; the third, two ; and the fourth, those whose yearly 
income fell short of that sum. The citizens of all classes enjoyed the 
right of voting in the popular assemblies, and in the courts of judicature ; 
but magisterial offices were limited to the first three classes. Solon thus, 



561 A.C.] INTRODUCTION. 31 

by the universal suffrage in the popular assemblies, restrained the excessive 
power of the aristocracy, and, at the same time, by confining the offices of 
state to the highest orders, prevented the introduction of a pure democracy. 

The archonship Solon left as he found it ; but introduced a clause into 
the condition of the election of these magistrates, prohibiting them from 
holding military command during the year of office. After the archons 
followed a council of four hundred, chosen from the first three classes, 
and possessing senatorial authority. The members of this council were 
selected by lot ; but they were obliged to undergo the strictest scrutiny 
into their past lives and characters before they were permitted to assume 
their official functions. The archons were required by law to consult the 
council in every important public matter ; and no subject could be dis- 
cussed, in the general assembly of the people, which had not previously 
received the sanction of the four hundred. The popular assemblies were 
composed of all the four classes, and had the right of confirming or re- 
jecting new laws, of electing the magistrates, of discussing all public 
affairs referred to them by the council, and of judging in all State trials. 

But notwithstanding all the care with which Solon arranged the fore- 
going departments of the government, the court of Areopagus was still 
to be the chief pillar of the Athenian constitution. This court had 
hitherto been a mere engine of aristocratic oppression ; but Solon modi- 
dified its constitution, and enlarged its powers. It was now to be exclu- 
sively composed of persons who had held the office of archon, and was 
made the supreme tribunal in all capital cases. It was likewise intrusted 
with the superintendence of morals, with the censorship upon the conduct 
of the archons at the expiration of their office ; and it had also the privi- 
lege of amending or rescinding the measures that had passed the general 
assemblies of the people. 

Having thus completed his constitutional arrangements, and placed 
the magistrates in their respective positions, Solon left Athens, in order 
to test the stability of his institutions, when left to rest upon their own 
intrinsic virtue. For some time the most sanguine expectations of those 
who had intrusted him with the power of remodelling the government, 
seemed to be entirely realized ; but, unfortunately, after Athens had en- 
joyed a few years of tranquillity, the restless and ambitious spirit of 
Pisistratus led him to subvert the laws of Solon, and usurp supreme 
power. Like Solon he was descended from the ancient kings of Athens, 
and, to add to his influence, had an enormous fortune, which he distributed 
amongst the poorer citizens with lavish munificence. His generosity, his 
eloquence, and his courteous manners, soon won for him universal favor ; 
and taking advantage of his position, he persuaded the lower ranks of his 
countrymen that his popularity had rendered him odious to the nobility, 
and that the protection of a body-guard was necessary for the safety of 
his life. Scarcely had this protection been granted than he seized on 
the Acropolis, and made himself absolute master of the State. 



32 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. I. 

Tlie usurpation of Pisistratus took place 561 A.C. ; and though it 
must he confessed that he acquired his power by wicked and illegal 
means, yet he exercised it with mildness and equity. During his whole 
administration of the government, he constantly exerted himself to ex- 
tend the glory of Athens, and secure the prosperity and happiness of the 
people; and at his death, in 528 A.C, his sons Hipparchus and Hippias 
succeeded, without opposition, to his power. After reigning conjointly 
for fourteen years, Hipparchus was murdered by two young Athenians, 
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, whose resentment he had provoked by an 
atrocious insult. The death of his brother aroused the bitterest resent- 
ment of Hippias ; and the cruelty with which he punished all whom he 
suspected of having had a share in his brother's death, alienated the af- 
fections of the people, and encouraged a strong party opposed to him, to 
make an effort for his expulsion. "With this view they bribed the Del- 
phian priesthood, and obtained a response from the oracle, commanding 
the Spartans to expel the Pisistratidae from Athens. This expulsion 
occurred in 510 A.C. ; and Hippias thenceforward lived in exile at the 
court of the King of Persia, and finally met, on the plains of Marathon, 
a more glorious death than his inglorious life deserved. 

With the expulsion of Hippias, and the abolition of tyranny in Athens, 
the second period of Grecian history ends ; and here it may be proper 
briefly to survey the aspect which the entire country now presents. Long 
previous to this period, however, we find the whole nation divided be- 
tween two races — the Ionians and the Dorians ; and these were distin- 
guished from each other by some striking characteristics which were 
never entirely obliterated. The Ionians were remarkable for their de- 
mocratic spirit, and consequent hostility to hereditary privileges. They 
were vivacious, prone to excitement, easily induced to make important 
changes in their institutions, and proud of their country and themselves. 
Without being destitute of martial vigor, their love of refined enjoyments 
made them early and diligent cultivators of the fine arts, and all those 
intellectual pursuits for which they afterwards became preeminent. 

The Dorians, on the contrary, were remarkable for the severe simpli- 
city of their manners, and their strict adherence to ancient usages. They 
preferred an aristocratic form of government, and required age as a 
qualification for magistracy, because the old are usually opposed to inno- 
vation. They were ambitious of supremacy, and the chief object of their 
institutions was to maintain the warlike and almost savage spirit of the 
nation. Slavery, in its worst form, prevailed in every Dorian State ; and 
the condition of slaves was altogether hopeless, for it was the policy of 
Dorian legislation to fix every man in his hereditary condition. The dif- 
ference, in fact, between the Ionians and the Dorians, is the chief charac- 
teristic of Grecian politics : it runs through their entire history, and was 
the principal cause of the deep-rooted hatred between Athens and Sparta. 



628A.C.] INTRODUCTION. 33 

In addition to the contrast between the Ionians and the Dorians, 
another marked feature in the political aspect of Greece was, that it con- 
tained as many free States as cities. Attica, Megaris, and Laconia, 
were civic rather than territorial States ; but there were few of the other 
divisions of the country that were united under a single government. 
The cities of Achaia, Arcadia, and Boeotia, were independent of each 
other, though the Achaian cities were united by a federative league ; 
and Thebes generally exercised a precarious dominion "over the other 
cities of Bceotia. Where a supremacy actually did exist, as eventually 
in the case of Athens and Sparta, it included the right of determining 
the foreign relations of the inferior States, and binding them to all wars 
in which the capital engaged, and all treaties of peace which it concluded ; 
but it did not allow of any interference in the internal administration of 
each government. 

Various and conflicting, however, as were the policies and interests of 
the Grecian States, yet many circumstances still contributed to unite the 
whole Hellenic race by a common bond of nationality. Of these, the 
chief was a unity of religion — connected with which were the national 
festivals and games, in which the entire Hellenic race, but no others, 
were allowed to take a part. The Greeks evidently derived the elements 
of their religion from Asia and Egypt ; but they soon made it so pecu- 
liarly their own, that it retained no features of its original source. All 
Asiatic deities symbolized some natural object, such as the sun, the earth, 
or an important river ; or some power of nature, such as the creating, 
the preserving, and the destroying power. The gods of Greece, on the 
contrary, were human personages, possessing the forms and attributes of 
men, though in a highly-exalted degree. The paganism of Asia was 
consequently a religion of fear, and had a fixed priesthood ; while that 
of the Greeks was a religion of love, and the priesthood was equally 
open to all. The latter regarded their gods as a kind of personal friends, 
and hence their worship was cheerful, and even joyous. That the reli- 
gion of the Greeks received its peculiar form from the beautiful fictions 
of the poets, especially from those of Homer and Hesiod, there can be no 
doubt ; for in all its features it is essentially poetical. The effect of 
this system was to beautify and perfect the fine arts, and to facilitate the 
progress of knowledge, by separating religion from philosophy. 

The oracles of Dodona and Delphi, the temples of Olympia and Delos 
were national, and belonged to the whole Hellenic race. The responses 
of the oracles were more reverenced by the Dorians than by the Ionians ; 
for the latter early emancipated themselves from the trammels of super- 
stition. The worship in all was voluntary, and the large gifts emulously 
sent to them were the spontaneous offering of patriotic affection. Delphi 
was under the government of the Amphityonic council ; but that council, 
so far from limiting its attention to the affairs of the temple alone, ac- 
quired, through its influence with the oracle, no small share in the affairs 

3 



34 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. I. 

of different States, and generally superintended the administration of their 
national laws, even at times when the States represented in it were at war 
with each other, or with a distant foe. 

The four great public games of Greece — the Olympian, the Pythian, 
the Nemean, and the Isthmian — were another strong bond of union. At 
these games, though strangers and foreigners were welcomed as specta- 
tors, none but the Hellenic race could contend for the prize. This right 
belonged, however, to the colonies as well as to the parent States ; and, 
as it was deemed a privilege of the highest value and the greatest im- 
portance, it preserved the unity even of the most distant branches of the 
great Hellenic race. 

At the period to which our remarks have now brought us down, Greece 
was fully prepared for those wonderful developments both in arts and in 
arms, which the sequel of her history exhibits. The poetical nature of 
her religion, and the free constitution of her States, not only rendered her 
peculiarly favorable to the progress of literature, philosophy, and the fine 
arts, but gave these, in turn, a decided influence on the government. 
The poetry of Homer had been rendered familiar to the Spartans by 
Lycurgus, and to the Athenians by Pisistratus — the lyric and tragic 
poets began to produce their pieces in honor, of the gods — the comic 
poets at Athens now commenced the discussion of public affairs on the 
stage with a freedom which, unfortunately, soon degenerated into licen- 
tiousness — and the influence of the Athenian orators rendered them the 
leaders of the State. The seeds of dissolution were, however, thickly 
sown in the whole social system of the Greeks ; for the natural rivalry 
between the Dorian and Ionian races, was only briefly suspended, in con- 
sequence of the threatening aspect which the vast power of the Persian 
empire now assumed towards all Greece. 

Darius Hystaspes, soon after he became firmly seated on the Persian 
throne, resolved to retaliate upon the Scythians, for an irruption which 
that rude people had made into the Persian dominions during the reign 
of his predecessor. With this view he advanced with a vast army to the 
banks of the Danube; and having thrown a bridge of boats over that river 
to facilitate the passage of his troops, he left the Ionian Greeks, and his 
tributaries from Thrace, to guard it during his absence. Miltiades, 
tyrant of the Thracian Chersonese, united with other Grecian leaders in 
the army, in a plan to destroy the bridge, and leave the Persian monarch 
to perish in the Scythian deserts. The design was, however, frustrated 
by the opposition of Histiseus, tyrant of Miletus ; and Miltiades, in dis- 
gust, retired to Athens, his native city, where he subsequently rose to the 
highest honors, while Histiaeus accompanied the monarch he had saved, 
to the court of Persia. Histiaeus soon discovered, however, that the very 
magnitude of his services exposed him to the most imminent danger ; 



493A.C] INTRODUCTION. 35 

and he therefore concerted, with his lieutenant Aristagoras, a plan for 
the revolt of all the Ionian colonies. 

To secure the success of this attempt to free themselves from the' 
Persian yoke, Aristagoras sought the aid of the Grecian States ; and with 
this view he applied first to the Spartans, and afterwards to the 
Athenians. At Sparta he was coldly received ; hut the Athenians, hav- 
ing so recently expelled their own tyrant, at once favored the design, and 
accordingly fitted out twenty ships, which were afterwards joined by five 
from the small State of Eretria, for his assistance. The combined forces 
were, at first, entirely successful, having soon taken and plundered 
Sardis, the rich capital of Lydia ; hut Aristagoras did not possess the 
talents of a general, and he could not, therefore, keep the several divisions 
of his army together. The European Greeks accordingly returned home, 
and left their Asiatic countrymen exposed to the full vengeance of their 
merciless masters. Miletus was taken, its walls razed to the ground, and 
its citizens either massacred or reduced to slavery; and many of the 
smaller States suffered a similar fate. Aristagoras fled into Thrace, 
where he was murdered by the barbarians ; and Histiaeus, after having 
been detained for a short time as a prisoner at Sardis, was publicly cru- 
cified, by order of the Persian satrap. 

Incensed at the temerity, as he regarded it, of the Athenians and 
Eretrians, Darius now resolved, as a proper retaliation, to subdue all 
Greece ; and preparatory to his invasion of that country, he sent ambas- 
sadors thither to demand, from the several States, the usual expression of 
homage — requiring also the Athenians to restore Hippias their exiled 
tyrant. Alarmed at the Persian power, all the States, except Athens 
and Sparta, at once proffered submission ; but those noble republics sent 
back a haughty defiance, and fearlessly prepared to encounter the whole 
strength of the Persian empire. 

Darius, in 493 A.C., and seven years after the Ionian revolt, having 
prepared a vast armament, intrusted its command to his son-in-law Mar- 
donius, who soon subdued the island Thasus, and the kingdom of Mace- 
donia ; but his fleet, while doubling Mount Athos, was shattered by a 
violent storm, during which three hundred vessels were dashed to pieces 
against the rocks, and twenty thousand men perished in the waves. Un- 
dismayed by the disastrous termination of this first expedition, Darius 
prepared, in 490 A.C., a second and more powerful armament, over which 
he placed his two best generals, Datis and Artiphernes. The fleet 
arrived safely at the island of Euboea, and the army, consisting of over 
five hundred thousand men, and conducted by the exiled Hippias, passed 
thence to the plains of Marathon, within forty miles of Athens, and there 
encamped. 

The Athenians, in this emergency, armed to a man ; but their whole 
force consisted of only ten thousand citizens, and twenty thousand slaves 



36 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. L 

— this unusual extremity requiring, for the first time, the military ser- 
vices of the latter. The little city of Platsea sent an auxiliary force of 
one thousand men ; but the Spartans, yielding either to superstition or to 
jealousy, refused to march before the full of the moon. Miltiades, who 
was now the principal commander of the Athenian forces at once led his 
little army to Marathon, and formed his lines at the foot of a hill which 
protected his rear and flank; while his left was secured by an extensive 
marsh, and his front, by trunks of trees, strewn for some distance, to 
break the force of the Persian cavalry. The Athenian citizens occupied 
the right, the Platseans the left, while the raw levies of slaves were sta- 
tioned in the centre. The Persian generals saw the advantages of thi? 
position ; but confident in their superior numbers, they, notwithstanding 
gave the signal for battle. The Greek centre, as Miltiades had antici- 
pated, gave way as soon as it was pressed by the Persians ; but as the 
two wings of the army had repulsed their opponents, they wheeled round, 
attacked the enemy in their flanks, and soon rendered their victory com- 
plete. The Persians, in confusion, rushed to their ships, and soon after 
took advantage of a favoring gale, and returned to Asia. 

The gratitude of the Athenians towards Miltiades, for this signal vic- 
tory, was unbounded. They erected numerous statues to his memory, 
and Caused a magnificent picture to be painted, representing him at the 
head of his army, rushing into the midst of the conflict. But the volitile 
Athenians soon forgot their debt of gratitude to him for his eminent ser- 
vices. Being unsuccessful in a subsequent expedition to relieve some of 
their distant allies, he was accused of having received a bribe, convicted 
upon doubtful evidence, and sentenced to pay a heavy fine. As presump- 
tive evidence of his innocence, the fine was entirely beyond his ability ; 
and he was therefore thrown into prison, where he soon after died of his 
wounds. 

Fortunately, notwithstanding her ingratitude to Miltiades, Athens still 
possessed two other citizens who had shared with him the glories of 
Marathon, and who were fully competent to wield the power which he 
had previously possessed. Those citizens were Themistocles, the most 
able statesman, and Aristides, the most virtuous patriot of Greece. The 
rivalry between them was, however, intense ; and in the course of their 
struggle for power, Aristides was condemned by ostracism to banishment. 
Themistocles himself, however, soon perceived that he needed his wise 
counsels ; and he, therefore, on the first emergency, successfully moved 
that he should be recalled. From this time their active rivalry ceased , 
and Themistocles, now supreme in authority, thenceforth directed all his 
efforts towards improving the Athenian naval power ; and he finally 
succeeded in securing for his country the complete supremacy of the 
Grecian seas. 

The death of Darius, which soon followed the overthrow of the Persian 



600A.C.] INTRODUCTION. 37 

army at Marathon, protracted, but did not end the war. Xerxes, his 
son and successor, renewed hostilities with a fixed resolution of over- 
whelming the whole of Greece. With this view he collected an army, 
which, after making every allowance for the exaggerations of ancient his- 
torians, was doubtless the most numerous ever assembled. From Susa he 
marched to the Hellespont; and having crossed the strait upon a bridge 
of boats, he poured down through Thessaly to the pass of Thermopylae, 
where he was surprised to find Leonidas, one of the kings of Sparta, with a 
small army of eight thousand men, prepared to defend the passage. The 
haughty Persian immediately sent a herald, commanding Leonidas and 
his companions to surrender up their arms ; and was maddened to frenzy 
by their contumelious reply, ' Come and take them.' After many ineffec- 
tual attempts to break the Grecian lines, all of which were repulsed with 
great slaughter, Xerxes was about to retire in despair ; when the treachery 
of Ephialtes, a Trachinian deserter, revealed to him a secret path that 
led to the top of the mountain, and by which a detachment of his army 
could reach the Grecian flank. Leonidas, perceiving that open resistance 
would now be fruitless, advised his allies to retire to their homes ; but, 
as he and his Spartan associates were forbidden by law to abandon their 
posts, they resolved to remain and show the enemy the spirit, at least, of 
the foe with whom they had to contend. Planting themselves in the 
upper part of the pass, to receive the multitudes by whom they were sur- 
rounded, they fought with the energies of despair, until they sunk, 
exhausted rather than vanquished. About the same time the Greeks 
obtained a signal victory over the Persian fleet near Artimisium ; but 
this triumph was rendered fruitless by the loss of the pass of Thermopylae. 
Themistocles, after the naval engagement near Artimisium, persuaded 
the allies to concentrate their combined fleet, consisting of three hundred 
and eighty sail, in the Saronic gulf, near the island of Salamis ; and 
Xerxes, having passed Thermopylae, entered Phocis, and sent a detach- 
ment of his army to plunder and destroy the temple of Delphi. These 
were met by the enraged Phocians, who attacked them with such deter- 
mined energy that only a miserable remnant of them escaped to the Per- 
sian camp. The main body of Xerxes' army was, however, more success- 
ful. Having taken and destroyed the cities of Thespiae and Plafaea, 
they advanced without farther resistance upon Athens ; and the Athen- 
ians, conscious of not being able to resist the vast numbers of the enem}?-, 
abandoned their beloved city — those who were capable of bearing arms 
retiring to the island of Salamis, and those whom age or sex rendered 
unfit for war, to the hospitable city of Trcezene. Athens was entirely 
demolished ; and Xerxes now, in the pride of success, resolved to anni- 
hilate the last hopes of the Greeks in a naval engagement. With this 
view he directed his whole fleet, consisting of twelve hundred sail, to 
enter the Saronic gulf, and blockade the Grecian fleet, as it lay at anchor 
in the harbor of Salamis. This was precisely what Themistocles had 



38 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. L 

anticipated ; and in the engagement that immediately followed, Xerxes 
had the mortification to see, from the rocky eminence -of iEgaleas, his 
magnificent navy utterly annihilated. 

With the battle of Salamis, Xerxes' personal schemes with regard to 
the conquest of Greece terminated, and he therefore returned at once to 
<Asia ; hut that he might not seem to relinquish the design of subduing 
the country, he left Mardonius, with an army of three hundred thousand 
men, to prosecute the war. These were met in the following year by the 
combined army of Greece, under the command of Aristides of Athens, 
and Pausanias of Sparta ; and a battle ensued, near the city of Platsea, 
which ended in the total defeat of the Persians, leaving but forty thou- 
sand of them to escape from the field of carnage, under Artabazus, by the 
way of the Hellespont, into their own country. On the same day an- 
other equally important victory was gained by the confederate fleet, 
commanded by Xanthippus, the father of Pericles, and Leotychides, one 
of the kings of Sparta, at Mycale, on the coast of Asia Minor. 

The vast treasures which the Greeks obtained from the Persian camps, 
as the fruits of these two last victories, required the selection of some 
individual into whose custody they might be placed ; and the pure and 
exalted character of Aristides, for which he had already obtained the 
title of l The Just,' at once turned the eyes of all Greece upon him for 
this important trust. In this honorable position he passed the few re- 
maining years of his life ; and such was the integrity with which he dis- 
charged the duties of public treasurer of the Grecian confederacy, that at 
his death he did not leave the means of defraying his own funeral 
expenses. 

Immediately after the battle of Platsea, the Athenians returned to 
the city, and Themistocles, at the head of the government, rebuilt its 
defences, fortified the harbor of the Piraeus, and joined it to Athens by 
what were called 'the long walls.' The glorious career of this great 
leader was, however, soon after unhappily terminated. Pausanias, the 
Spartan commander at the battle of Plataea, being dazzled with his re- 
cent success, and ambitious of reigning over all Greece, opened a corre- 
spondence with Xerxes, and proposed to that monarch to make him master 
of Greece, on condition that he would place him as his satrap over the 
country, and give him his daughter in marriage. The terms were 
accepted by the Persian king ; but before the plan could be matured, 
the plot was discovered ; immediately after which, Pausanias was 
brought to trial, condemned, and shut up in the temple of Minerva, 
where he was allowed to starve to death. Irritated at this disgraceful 
conduct in one of their principal leaders, and jealous of the increasing 
glory of the Athenians, the Spartans basely charged Themistocles, 
though without a shadow of evidence, with being one of Pausanias' 
accomplices. Themistocles was, accordingly, tried by ostracism, con- 
victed, and sentenced to ten years' banishment. After wandering for 



468A.C.] INTRODUCTION". 39 

some time through the northern states of Greece, he finally took refuge 
at the court of Persia, where he was hospitably entertained for a number 
of years ; but at length, wearied with his absence from his beloved 
Athens, he terminated his life by poison. 

The death of Aristides, in 468 A.C., and the banishment of Themis- 
tocles, a little before, left Cimon, the son of Miltiades, the chief command 
of the combined naval force of Greece ; and pursuing the Persian fleet, 
which still lingered in the Eastern seas, he came up with it off the coast 
of Cyprus, and there gained as signal a victory as that of Salamis. The 
Persian army was, meantime, encamped on the Asiatic coast, near the 
mouth of the river Eurymedon, and thither Cimon at once hastened, hav- 
ing dressed his men in the vestures and arms of his prisoners. The 
attack was so sudden and unexpected, that the enemy were thrown into 
the utmost confusion, and before they could recover themselves, their 
destruction was completed. These two victories induced the Persians to 
sue for peace ; and in the treaty which followed, it was stipulated that 
the independence of the Greek cities of Lower Asia should be restored — 
that no Persian vessel should appear between the northern extremity of 
the Thracian Bosphorus, and the southern promontory of Lysia — that no 
Persian army should come within three days' journey of the sea-coast ; 
and that the Athenians should withdraw their fleets and armies from the 
island of Cyprus. This treaty was made 449 A.C., and thus gloriously 
were terminated the Persian wars, which, from the burning of Sardis, 
had lasted, with little intermission, fifty-one years. 

Cimon died immediately after the battle of Eurymedon, and left Peri- 
cles, who had long been associated with him in power, without a rival in 
the State. A disastrous earthquake, in which one hundred and twenty 
thousand citizens perished, and which overwhelmed Sparta itself, occurred 
about the same time in Laconia ; and by this means Athens became the 
supreme power in Greece. The city itself, under the splendid adminis- 
tration of Pericles, rose to unparalleled magnificence ; but as the ambi- 
tion of that great leader knew no bounds, the smaller States were taught 
to feel their dependence, and even to groan under the weight of the op- 
pressive yoke which they were compelled to bear. The necessity of 
union between the leading States of Greece, having also been removed by 
the close of the Persian war, the old animosities between the Dorian and 
the Ionian races were once more revived, and only waited for a suitable 
occasion tc break forth into open hostility. A quarrel between the Co- 
rinthians and the Corcyrians at length afforded such an occasion ; and 
hence, in 431 A.C., commenced the Peloponnesian war. Sparta had, by 
this time, recovered, in a great measure, her former strength, and become 
the leader of the Dorian States, whilst Athens commanded the sea, and 
embraced in her alliance all the JEgean islands. The contest lasted, 



40 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. I. 

with only occasional intervals, for twenty-seven years, and finally ended 
in the total prostration of the Athenian power, at the fatal "battle of 
iEgos-potamos, 406 A.C., and the occupation of Athens by a Spartan gar- 
rison two years afterwards. 

Sparta, in her turn, now became the ruling power in Greece, and her 
first act of oppression, after demolishing the walls of the city, was to place 
over Athens her former rival, the government of c the thirty tyrants.' The 
severity and injustice of their administration soon, however, brought 
about their own overthrow; for Thrasybulus, a worthy patriot, joined by 
a\small band of resolute associates, in 403 A.C., expelled the tyrants, and 
restored the liberty of his country. But the Athenians were not prepared 
to profit by the advantages' thus obtained ; for though Conon soon after 
regained for his country the ascendancy at sea, and rebuilt the long wajls 
of Athens, the spirit of Miltiades and Themistocles, of Aristides and 
Cimon, and even of Pericles, had passed away ; and Athenian degeneracy 
was soon after confirmed in the mock trial and judicial murder of 
Socrates, the most worthy of their citizens, and the prince of their 
philosophers. 

In 383" A.C., just twenty years after the expulsion of the tyrants from 
Athens, a Spartan army, under the command of Phcebidas, one of their 
generals, seized the citadel of Thebes, during a profound peace, and 
placed within its walls a Spartan garrison, under whose protection ^an 
oligarchy of traitors reduced the city to the same misery that Athens had 
endured under ' the thirty tyrants.' The chief of Theban patriots fled 
from the city; and Pelopidas, one of the number, stimulated by the 
recent example of Thrasybulus, concerted, in 378 A.C., with Epaminondas, 
who remained in Thebes, a bold plan for the liberation of their country. 
The most licentious of the tyrants were invited by a secret partizan of 
the patriots to a feast ; and while they were heated with wine, the con- 
spirators entered the house where they were assembled in disguise, and 
slew them in the midst of their debauchery. The rest of the traitors, 
alarmed at the fate of their associates, either fled from the city, or per- 
ished in a similar manner. A war between Thebes and Sparta immedi- 
ately followed, and the Thebans entrusted the conduct of their armies to 
the two noble patriots who had delivered them from Spartan oppression. 
Pelopidas first took the command, and in the campaign which followed, 
he won two splendid victories of Agesilaus, the Spartan king — the one 
at Tinagra, and the other at Tegyra — though in the latter conflict he had 
to encounter a vast disparity of force. 

The immediate effect of these two victories was to check the pride and 
to curb the arrogance of the Spartans ; and hence, during the four or 
five years that followed, negociations and conventions employed the prin- 
cipal portion of their time. But in the spring of 371 A.C. both armies 



868A.C] INTRODUCTION. 41 

again took the field — the Spartans under the command of Cleombrotus, 
and the Thebans led by Epaminondas, who, according to Cicero, was the 
most accomplished general that Greece ever produced. They met on the 
memorable field of Leuctra, and the victory of the Thebans was decisive, 
Cleombrotus himself being left among the slain. The consequences of this 
battle were more important than the victory itself ; for the States pre- 
viously under the yoke of Sparta began at once openly to aspire at inde- 
pendence. The ascendancy of Thebes was now universally acknowledged 
throughout Greece ; but no other memorable action occurred until 362 
A.C.j when the two hostile armies once more met near the wealthy city of 
Mantinsea. Agesilaus in person led the Spartans, while the Thebans 
were again commanded by Epaminondas. The overthrow of the Spartan 
army was complete ; but the death of Epaminondas, who fell in the early 
part of the action, deprived the Thebans from reaping any particular ad- 
vantages from their victory, and a general peace was effected during the 
following year. 

After the battle of Tegyra, Pelopidas, in 368 A.C., was sent by the 
Thebans to mediate between Ptolemy of Alorus, and Alexander the 
Second, King of Macedonia ; and in order to insure the observance of 
the treaty entered into between those monarchs, he took Philip, the 
youngest son of Alexander, to Thebes as an hostage. Here the young 
Macedonian prince, then in the fifteenth year of his age, became intimate 
with Epaminondas, and from that great commander thoroughly learned 
the art of war. The general peace that followed the battle of Mantinsea 
left Philip free to return to his native country ; and soon after his arrival 
in Macedonia he succeeded, in 359 A.C., his brother Perdiccas, to the 
prejudice of his nephew Amyntas, upon the throne. The first few years 
of Philip's reign were occupied in wars with the Illyrians and other na- 
tions that surrounded his kingdom ; but having dosed these wars, he was 
invited, in 352 A.C., by the Thebans, to aid them against the Phocians. 

As Philip had long sought a pretext for interfering in the affairs of 
Greece, he obeyed the summons of the Thebans with alacrity, utterly 
routed the Phocians, and obtained their place in the Amphictyonic coun- 
cil. A few years after he seized the pass of Thermopylae, and thus secured 
to his armies the free ingress and egress of the countries which it sepa- 
rated. The Athenians, urged by the burning eloquence of Demosthenes, 
now took the alarm, and joined by the Thebans, determined at once to 
dislodge him. The fated battle of Chaeronia, in which the Macedonians 
were completely triumphant, soon followed, and from that period the in- 
dependence of the Grecian States forever ceased. A general convention 
of the Amphictyonic council was held at Corinth in 337 A.C., at which 
Philip was chosen captain-general of confederate Greece, and appointed 
to lead their united forces against the Persian empire. He was, how- 
ever, in the following year, murdered by Pausanius, a young Macedonian 



42 INTRODUCTION. [Lect. L 

nobleman, in revenge of a private insult, while celebrating the marriage 
of his daughter, and was succeeded by his son Alexander. 

Alexander, deservedly surnamed the Great, succeeded to the throne at 
the early age of twenty ; but so thoroughly had he been educated by the 
philosopher Aristotle, that his mind was in full maturity. After subdu- 
ing the Illyrians, the Thracians, and other barbarous tribes of the north, 
he appeared so suddenly in Greece, that a general consternation prevailed 
throughout the whole country. All at once submitted, and the different 
States were hurried into convention on the Isthmus of Corinth, and the 
appointment of captain-general previously conferred upon his father, was 
at once bestowed upon him. Impetuous in action as well as in temper, 
he delayed not a moment to carry into effect the great design of his 
father, of invading and subduing the Persian empire. With this view, 
leaving the government of Greece and Macedonia to Antipater, one of his 
generals, he crossed the Hellespont in the spring of 334 A.C., and at the 
head of an army of thirty thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry, 
he commenced a career of conquest which, for brilliancy in its results, has 
had no parallel in the history of the world. He met Darius successively 
on the banks of the Granicus, in the pass of Issus, and on the plains of 
Arbela, and at the close of the last action which was fought 331 A.C. 
the whole Persian empire lay prostrate at the conqueror's feet. In the 
meantime Alexander had destroyed Tyre and subdued Egypt ; and now 
he prepared to march into India. Equally successful in his eastern cam- 
paign, he, at its close, in 325 A.C, returned to Babylon, intending to 
make that city the seat of his vast empire. But all his schemes were 
frustrated by his premature death, which occurred on the 28th of May, 
324 A.C, less than thirteen years after he commenced his wonderful 
career. 

For twenty-three years after Alexander's death, nothing but conten- 
tions and conspiracies prevailed throughout the empire — each of his gen- 
erals striving for the ascendancy over the rest. At length, in 301 A.C, 
the decisive battle of Ipsus was fought, and as the result of that action, 
the dominions of Alexander were divided between Ptolemy of Egypt, 
Seleucus of Upper Asia, Lysimachus of Thrace, and Oassancler of 
Greece and Macedonia. Greece still maintained a precarious exist- 
ence for about one hundred and fifty years ; but by the battle of Pydna, 
which was fought 148 A.C, and the destruction of Corinth two years after- 
wards, the whole country was reduced to the form of a Roman province, 
under the name of Achaia. 

We have thus rapidly sketched the physical and moral character of 
the Greeks — their intellectual character will form the subject of the fol- 
lowing lectures. 



tnlnxt tyt $ tout It- 



HOMER. 

HAVING, in the last lecture, closed our remarks upon the history of 
Greece, we now proceed to the consideration of Grecian poetry. 

The origin of poetic numbers is found in a desire to reduce specific 
ideas to a definite form ; hence Minos and other ancient sages composed 
their laws in verse. The effusions of all the early bards of Greece were 
doubtless of the same nature. In the heroic ages, the deeds of real per- 
sonages formed the burthen of the poet's song ; and for this reason their 
names became sacred, and their memories were immortalized. Of these 
bards,, such as Linus, Orpheus, and Musseus, little else is known than 
their names ; and to determine the time at which they flourished, was a 
matter of as much difficulty two thousand years ago as it is at present. 
We therefore pass over these earlier poets, and proceed at once to notice 
Homer, emphatically the father of Grecian poetry. 

Of this remarkable character we have so little definite knowledge, that 
all would seem a matter of mere conjecture, were it not that Herodotus has 
left us, in his great historical work, something that approaches to a regu- 
lar history of the poet's life. The authenticity of this narrative has, 
however, been so frequently called in question, that it would be an act of 
weak credulity to depend upon it, had not Strabo, the eminent ancient 
Geographer, not only regarded it as an authentic biography, but even 
quoted it as authority in his own works. From this account of Homer 
we collect the following particulars : — 

Menalippus, of Magnesia, in Asia Minor, married the daughter of 
Homyres, of Cumae, a neighboring town. From this marriage sprung 
Critheus, an only daughter, who had the misfortune to be early left by 
her parents an orphan. The little property that her father had possessed 
was committed to the care of a magistrate of her native place, who was 
also a personal friend, and who assumed towards her the character of 
a guardian. Neglecting, as is often the case with guardians, his im- 
portant charge, Critheus imprudently contracted an early marriage with 
a youth who proved entirely unworthy of her affections. His death, how- 



44 HOMER. [Lect. II. 

ever, which occurred a few months after their marriage, released her from 
the unhappy connection ; and having been for some time previous ne- 
glected by her family and friends, she resolved to leave her native place, 
and settle in Smyrna, an Ionian city, then recently founded. Dependent 
entirely upon her own exertions for the means of subsistence, Critheus 
turned her attention to the spinning of wool, a respectable and an 
honorable employment for females in her situation. She had not resided 
long in Smyrna before she gave birth to a son, whom she named Homer, 
in honor of Homyres, his maternal grandfather. This event occurred 920 
A.C. Having now an additional motive to exertion, and a new incentive 
to propriety of conduct, she demeaned herself so discreetly as to elicit 
very general admiration ; and Phemias, a teacher of literature, whose 
residence was near her own, observing her daily deportment, and being 
pleased with its consistency, invited her to take up her abode in his 
house, and employ herself in spinning the wool which he was accustomed 
to receive from his scholars as compensation for their instruction. 

Critheus had resided but a short time in the house of Phemias before 
the same discreet conduct which she had hitherto observed, induced him 
to place the entire management of his household affairs into her hands ; 
and the constant intercourse between them, which necessarily followed, soon 
ripened into a settled affection, and their marriage was the immediate con- 
sequence. Having married the mother, Phemias, of course, adopted the 
son ; and Homer, as soon as his age would permit, was introduced to the 
school of his step-father, and there enjoyed all the advantages of a liberal 
education. In this situation he remained until the sixteenth year of his 
age, soon after which he had the misfortune to lose both his parents, and 
was thus left, before he had attained his eighteenth year, to depend upon 
his own resources for his future subsistence. His education being ample, 
and his talents of the most commanding order, he had already drawn 
forth the approbation, and even excited the admiration of all Smyrna ; 
and a general desire was therefore expressed that he would assume the 
charge of the school, and continue to conduct it upon its former prin- 
ciples. 

Previous to the death of his parents, Homer had given an earnest, by 
the composition of some minor poems, of that remarkable poetic genius 
which afterwards immortalized his name. He had written, among others, 
a hymn to Apollo, which has ""escended down to the present period. This 
hymn is so extraordinary a production that we deem it necessary to intro- 
duce an extract from it in this early part of our narrative of the author's 
life: 

HYMN TO APOLLO. 

Far-darting Phoebus of the flowing hair 
Down from the broad-track' d mountain passed, and all 
Those goddesses look'd on in ravish'd awe ; 



920A.C] HOMER. 45 

And all the Delian isle was heap'd with gold, 
So gladden'd by his presence, the fair son 
Of Jove and of Latona. For he chose 
That island as his home o'er every isle 
Or continent, and loved it in his soul. 
It flourish'd like a mountain, when its top 
Is hid with flowering blossoms of a wood. 

God of the silver bow, far-darting King 1 
Thou, too, East trod the craggy Cynthus' heights, 
And sometimes wander'd to the distant isles 
And various haunts of men ; and many faues 
Are thine, and groves thick set with gloomy trees : 
Thine all the caverns, and the topmost cliffs 
Of lofty mountains, and sea-rolling streams. 
But still, oh Phoebus ! in the Delian isle 
Thy heart delighteth most. Th' Ionians there 
In trailing robes before thy temple throng, 
"With their young children and their modest wives; 
And mindful of thy honor charm thee there 
With cestus combats, and with bounding dance, 
And song, in stated contest. At the sight 
Of that Ionian crowd a man would say 
That all were blooming with immortal youth: 
So looking on the gallant mien of all, 
And nvishing his mind while he beheld 
The fair-formed men, the women with broad zone 
Gracefully girt, their rapid-sailing ships, 
And pomp of all their opulence ; and more 
Than all, that mightier miracle, whose praise 
Shall still imperishable bloom, the maids 
Of Delos, priestesses of him who darts 
His rays around the world. Apollo first 
They glorify with hymnings, and exalt 
Latona's and the quiver'd Dian's name. 
Then in their songs record the men of old, 
The listening tribes of mortals ; for their voice 
Can imitate the modulated sounds 
Of various human tongues, and each would say 
Himself were speaking. Such their aptitude 
Of flexile accents, and melodious speech. 

Hail, oh Latona ! «Dian ! Phcebus ! hail ! 
And hail, ye charming damsels, and farewell I 
Bear me hereafter in your memories ; 
And should some stranger, worn with hardships touch 
Upon your island and inquire, "What man, 
Oh maidens ! lives among you as the bard 
Of sweetest song, and most enchants your ear ■?" 
Then answer for us all, " Our sweetest bard 
Is the blind man of Chios' rocky isle !" 

The reputation which Homer's poetry gave him, together with the dis- 
tinguished ability with which he conducted his school, attracted the atten- 



46 HOMER. [Lect.TL 

tion, and elicited tne admiration, not only of the citizens of Smyrna, but 
of all strangers whose business or pleasure might lead them to visit that 
city. Indeed, so great was his fame, that the purposes of a visit to 
Smyrna were scarcely considered attained, unless an interview with the 
distinguished young bard had been enjoyed. Amongst others, whose 
pursuits brought them at this time to Smyrna, was Mentes, a shipmaster 
of Leucadia. Being himself a man of genius and attainments, and also 
of an enthusiastic temperament, he sought the acquaintance of Homer ; 
and the similarity of their tastes soon induced in them a very strong 
personal attachment for each other. Homer had already conceived the 
idea of writing the Iliad, the subject of which had long been familiar te 
his countrymen — many of the incidents having, doubtless, already been 
celebrated in poetic numbers. With an invitation, therefore, from 
Mentes, when he was preparing to leave Smyrna, to accompany him in 
his future voyages, Homer at once complied, as it would afford him an 
opportunity to visit those places, the description of which the Iliad would 
necessarily embrace. Preparations being accordingly made, and the 
time fixed for their departure having arrived, they embarked from 
Smyrna for Egypt — touching, as they passed, at the various Grecian 
islands and ports which lay in their way thither. In Egypt they re- 
mained a sufficient length of time to afford Homer an opportunity to 
familiarize himself with the gods of that country ; and it was thence that 
he derived the names of those divinities whose attributes were afterwards 
exhibited in his great poems. 

From Egypt Mentes sailed along the northern coast of Africa, touch- 
ing at the various ports of that country as he passed, and finally reached 
Spain, where he remained for some months, transacting such business as 
had brought him thither. From Spain they resolved to return imme- 
diately to their native country ; but while on their way some circumstance 
transpired, which is not particularly mentioned, and which led them to 
the island of Ithica — the ancient home of Ulysses. While in Ithica, 
Homer was seized with an affection of the eyes, which soon became so 
serious that, on the departure of Mentes from the island, he was com- 
pelled to leave Homer behind him. He was careful, however, to intro- 
duce Homer, before he left, to the kindness < and care of Mentor, one of 
the chief men of the island, and by whom he was treated with every pos- 
sible degree of attention. Thus unexpectedly detained in Ithica, Homer 
embraced the opportunity which the circunistance > afforded him, of col- 
lecting those particulars concerning the life and adventures of Ulysses, 
which he afterwards so beautifully elaborated in the Odyssey. 

After a few months' absence in Leucadia, Mentes returned to Ithica, 
and Homer in the meantime having partially recovered from the affection 
of his eyes, embarked with him for Smyrna. On his way thither he 
completed the Iliad, and, soon after his arrival, presented it to the 
public. The admiration with which the work was received, was un 



920A.C.] HOMER. 47 

bounded ; but the unsettled condition in which Homer had left his per- 
sonal affairs at his departure from his home, together with the heavy ex- 
penses attending his distant journeyings, involved him in such embarrass- 
ments that a longer residence in Smyrna would be irksome and even 
oppressive. He therefore left his birth-place, and retired to Cumse, the 
home of his maternal ancestors, hoping there to meet with a reception in 
accordance with the distinguished fame he had now acquired. The 
Cumseans received him with unbounded pleasure, and expressed their 
gratification at his return to his ancestral home, in terms of unlimited 
satisfaction ; but when they learned what his circumstances were, and the 
purpose for which he had come thither, and especially when he intimated 
to them that his design was to immortalize their city in poetic numbers, 
with the expectation of receiving from them a pension sufficient to sup- 
port him during the remainder of his life, they at once replied that, 
should they accede to all such requests, there would be no end to the 
number of blind bards that they should have to support. 

Incensed at being thus repulsed by the citizens of Cumse, Homer went 
to Phocoea, a neighboring town, resolving there publicly to recite his 
poems, and observe the effect they would produce. He had been but a 
short time in Phoccea before he met with Thestorides, a distinguished 
school-master of that place, and who, ascertaining the pressing necessities 
of the needy bard, proposed to give him a home in his own house and 
with his own family, on condition that he would allow him to take a 
copy of his verses. At this time Homer seems to have lost his sight, and 
his pressing necessities therefore compelled him to comply with Thes- 
torides, proposal. Thestorides, however, proved treacherous to the poet ; 
for he had no sooner obtained a copy of his verses than he left Phoccea, 
and retired to Chios, a neighboring island, where he soon acquired con- 
siderable wealth by reciting Homer's poems. After some considerable 
time had passed, Homer accidentally learned that Thestorides was at 
Chios, and he resolved therefore to follow him thither, and obtain from 
him if possible the restoration of his poems. Thestorides, however, be- 
came advised of the design of Homer, and escaped to some other part of 
Ionian Greece before the poet's arrival ; and Homer, finding himself at 
Chios in a state of comparative destitution, and having no other source 
of dependence, resolved to return to his early profession, and open in 
that island a school of polite learning, on a plan similar to the one he 
had so long prosecuted in Smyrna. His skill as a teacher was soon 
recognized and appreciated at Chios, and his patronage was such as to 
surpass his most sanguine expectations. This circumstance, together 
with the numerous friendships that he there soon formed, induced him to 
determine to make Chios the place of his permanent residence. He 
eventually married the daughter of one of the chief citizens of the island, 
and designed there to pass the remainder of his life. The people of 



48 HOMER. [Lect.IL 

Chios, even to this day, point out the spot where Homer imparted his 
instructions, and the groves and seats which his scholars occupied. 

While he resided at Chios, Homer composed his Odyssey, and artfully 
interwove into the work the names of Mentes, Mentor, and other friends 
whom grateful recollections for kindness kept ever fresh in his memory, 
and from whom he had, from time to time, received distinguished marks 
of favor. Having resolved to visit Athens, he introduced into his poem, 
with much art, the name of that celebrated city, which had already 
assumed an imposing position amongst the cities of Greece. This special 
recognition of their relative position, induced the Athenians to extend an 
invitation to Homer to visit their city as a public guest. This invita- 
tion, flattering to his vanity, and grateful to his feelings, he resolved to 
accept ; and he accordingly left Chios for the purpose of executing his 
design. On his way to Athens, however, the vessel in which he had taken 
passage was cast upon the island of Samos, and there Homer and his 
companions were obliged to pass the winter. In the following spring cir- 
cumstances again required his attention at Chios; but soon after his 
return to that island, his exhausted strength gave way, and, sinking under 
the effects of a disease with which he had long been afflicted, his death 
soon followed ; and, at his own request, he was buried on the borders of 
the sea, that the flowing waves, as they rolled against the shore, might 
obliterate every trace of the spot where his remains reposed, and he thus 
rest in his quiet and undisturbed grave. 

Of the various productions attributed to Homer, the Iliad and the 
Odyssey are the only ones that are unquestionably his. Besides these, 
however, there is internal evidence that a number of the hymns assigned 
to him were of his composing ; such as the hymn to Apollo, already men- 
tioned. It is true that time may have prevailed in obliterating many 
other of the important productions of his pen ; such as the Margites and 
Cecropes ; but while the Iliad and the Odyssey remain, he seems like a 
leader, who, though he may have failed in a skirmish or two, has yet 
gained a victory for which he will pass in triumph through all future ages. 

The genius of Homer was vast, versatile, and in a peculiar degree, orig- 
inal. His versatility and his creative power are certainly without a par- 
allel amongst the ancients, and in modern times he has scarcely had an 
equal. The worthies of antiquity were uniformly formed after the models 
found in his poems. From him law-givers, and the founders of monarch- 
ies and commonwealths took the models of their politics. Hence, too, phi- 
losophers drew the first principles of the morality which they taught their 
disciples. Here, also, physicians learned the nature of diseases, and their 
causes ; the astronomers of ancient times acquired their knowledge of the 
heavens, and geometricians of the earth ; kings and princes the art of 
government, and captains to form a battle, to encamp an army, to besiege 
towns, to fight, and to gain victories. It is no exaggerated praise of 



920A.C.] HOMER. 49 

Homer to say, that no man ever understood men and things better than 
he did, or had a deeper insight into the humors and passions of human 
nature. He represents great things with such sublimity, and little things 
with such propriety, that he always makes the one admirable, and the 
other agreeable. Strabo, the ancient geographer already mentioned, as- 
sures us that Homer has described the places and the countries of which 
he gives us an account, with that accuracy that no man can imagine who 
has not seen them, and which no man but must admire, and be astonished 
at ! His poems may justly be compared with that shield of divine work- 
manship, so inimitably represented in the eighteenth book of the Iliad, 
where we have exact images of all the actions of war, and all the employ- 
ments of peace, and are, at the same time, entertained with a delightful 
view of the universe. 

These opinions are sustained by the highest authority. Sir William 
Temple, in his estimate of the comparative merits of Homer and Virgil 
indulges in the following remarks : — " Homer was, without doubt, the 
most universal genius that has been known in the world, and Virgil the 
most accomplished. To the first must be allowed the most fertile inven- 
tion, the richest vein, the most general knowledge, and the most lively 
expressions ; to the last, the noblest ideas, the justest institutions, the 
wisest conduct, and the choicest elocution. To speak in the painters' 
terms, we find in the works of Homer the most spirit, force, and life ; in 
those of Virgil the best designs, the truest proportions, and the greatest 
grace. The coloring of both seems equal, and indeed in both is admir- 
able. Homer had more fire and rapture ; Virgil more light and sweetness ; 
or at least the poetical fire was more raging in the one, but clearer in the 
other ; which makes the first more amazing, and the latter more agree- 
able. The ore was richer in the one, but in the other more refined and 
better alloyed to make up excellent work. Upon the whole it must be 
confessed that Homer was of the two, and perhaps of all others, the vast- 
est, the sublimest, and the most wonderful genius ; and that he has been 
generally so esteemed, there can be no greater testimony given than has 
been by some observed, that not only the greatest masters have found the 
best and truest principles of all their sciences and arts in him, but that 
the noblest nations have derived from him the original of their several 
races, though it be hardly yet agreed whether his story be true or a fic- 
tion. In short, these two immortal poets must 'be allowed to have so 
much excelled in their kind, as to have exceeded all comparison, to have 
extinguished emulation, and in a manner confined true poetry, not only 
to their own languages, but to their very poems." We are not to be un- 
derstood as designing to convey our own peculiar views of the genius of 
Homer in the language of this extract ; but the source whence it comes 
is so exalted, and the position of the author so authoritative, that we felt 
it due to him to introduce it without abbreviation. 

The chief characteristic of Homer's genius has usually been regarded 

4 



50 . HOMER. [Lect.II. 

to be its sublimity. We do not conceive, however, that this term con- 
veys a sufficiently comprehensive view of his poetic excellence. That he 
was remarkable for his sublimity, must be conceded by every critic ; but 
that he possessed other poetic properties of equal excellence cannot, for a 
moment, be denied. To our view his grand characteristic is nature. In 
it is the serene majesty of Deity in repose, and in that moral sublime 
which is conversant with human passions, the powers of his genius 
appear the most astonishing. When we have once imagined a giant, it 
requires no great effort to make him stride in three steps from one prom- 
ontory to another ; but it is not every poet who can represent Achilles 
receiving, in his tent, the embassy from Agamemnon with the calm 
severity of dignified resentment — soothing his angry soul with the tones 
of his immortal harp, or smiting his thigh with a start of generous emo- 
tion at the sight of the Grecian ships in flames. It is here that Homer 
excels, and it is in such scenes and under such circumstances that his 
extraordinary power exhibits itself. We feel for Achilles, in the midst 
of ail his raging, and the severity of his resentment, as for an injured 
fellow being ; and when his anger towards Agamemnon is overcome by 
the fate of his beloved Patrocles, the gushings of admiration flow forth 
in all their generous warmth, and we accompany him with a feeling of 
personal interest in every event that thenceforth transpires, until Hector, 
the slayer of his friend, is prostrate at his feet. But we must forbear. 

The Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer, as we learn from Athenaeus, 
were originally produced, each as an entire whole, and not divided into 
books, as we now have them. But as few only could afford to purchase 
them entire, they were circulated in detached parts, and assumed names 
according to their respective contents ; as, ' The Battle of the Ships,' 
< The Death of Dolon,' < The Valor of Agamemnon,' < The Grot of Ca- 
lipso,' and ' The Slaughter of the Wooers ;' and were not then entitled 
Books, but Rhapsodies. The first* complete copy of Homer's poems was 
introduced into Greece about a century after they were composed, by 
Lycurgus, the celebrated Spartan lawgiver ; who, passing, in his travels, 
through Ionia, there found them, and with his own hand transcribed and 
brought them into his own country. This may, therefore, be considered 
the first edition of these immortal works. About two centuries after- 
wards, Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, caused them to be carefully 
revised, and reduced to their present form. 

In our extracts from the writings of this great poet, we shall confine 
ourselves to the Iliad and Odyssey, as the authority of these poems has 
never been questioned. The first passage we introduce is a scene from 
the second book of the Iliad, containing the description of a contest 
between Ulysses and Thersites, with a portraiture of Thersites' person. 



920A.O.] HOMER. -51 



ULYSSES AND THERSITES. 

With words like tliese the troops Ulysses rul'd, 

The loudest silenc'd, and the fiercest cool'd. 

Back to th' assembly roll the thronging train, 

Desert the ships, and pour upon the plain. 

Murmuring they move, as when old Ocean roars, 

And heaves huge surges to the trembling shores: 

The groaning banks are burst with bellowing sound, 

The rocks reinurmur and the deeps rebound. 

At length the tumult sinks, the noises cease, 

And the still silence lulls the camp to peace. 

Thersites only clamor'd in the throng, 

Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue : 

Aw'd by no shame, by no respect control' d, 

In scandal busy, in reproaches bold: 

With witty malice studious to defame; 

Scorn all his joy, and laughter all his aim. 

But chief he gloried with licentious style, 

To lash the great, and monarchs to revile. 

His figure such as might his soul proclaim; 

One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame: 

His mountain-shoulders half his breast o'erspread, 

Thin hairs bestrew'd his long mis-shapen head. 

Spleen to mankind his envious heart possess'd, 

And much he hated all, but most the best. 

Ulysses or Achilles still his theme; 

But royal scandal his delight supreme. 

Long had he liv'd the scorn of every Greek, 

Vext when he spoke, yet still they heard him speak: 

Sharp was his voice ; which, in the shrillest tone, 

Thus with injurious taunts attack'd the throne : 

Amidst the glories of so bright a reign, 
What moves the great Atrides to complain? 
'Tis thine whate'er the warrior's breast inflames, 
The golden spoil, and thine the lovely dames. 
With all the wealth our wars and blood bestow, 
Thy tents are crowded, and thy chests o'erflow. 
Thus at full ease in heaps of riches roll'd, 
What grieves the monarch ? is it thirst of gold ? 
Say, shall we march with our unconquer'd powers 
(The Greeks and I), to Ilium's hostile towers, 
And bring the race of royal bastards here, 
For Troy to ransom at a price too dear? 
But safer plunder thy own host supplies; 
Say, wouldst thou seize some valiant leader's prize ? 
Or, if thy heart to generous love tte led,_ 
Some captive fair, to bless thy kingly bed ? 
Whate'er our master craves, submit we must, 
Plagued with his pride, or punish'd for his lust. 



52 HOMER. [Lect.II. 

Oh -women of Aehaia ! men a.o more ! 
Hence let us fly, and let him waste his store 
In loves and pleasures on the Phrygian shore. 
"We may be wanted on some busy day, 
"When Hector comes : so great Achilles may : 
From him be forc'd the prize we jointly gave, 
From him, the fierce, the fearless, and the brave: 
And durst he, as he ought, resent that wrong, 
This mighty tyrant were no tyrant long. 

Fierce from his seat at this Ulysses springs, 
In generous vengeance of the king of kings. 
"With indignation sparkling in his eyes, 
He views the wretch, and sternly thus replies : 

Peace, factious monster, born to vex the State, 
With wrangling talents form'd for foul debate, 
Curb that impetuous tongue, nor rashly vain 
And singly mad, asperse the sovereign reign. 
Have we not known thee, slave ! of all our host, 
The man who acts the least, upbraids the most? 
Think not the Greeks to shameful flight to bring, 
Nor let those lips profane the name of king. 
For our return we trust the heavenly powers ; 
Be that their care ; to fight like men be ours. 
But grant the host with wealth the general load, 
Except detraction, what hast thou bestow'd? 
Suppose some hero should his spoils resign, 
Art thou that hero ? could those spoils be thine ? 
Gods! let me perish on this hateful shore, 
And let these eyes behold my son no more, 
If on thy next offence, this hand forbear 
To strip those arms thou ill deserv'st to wear, 
Expel the council where our princes meet, 
And send thee scourg'd and howling through the fleet. 

He said, and cowering as the dastard bends, 
The mighty sceptre on his back descends. 
On the round bunch the bloody tumors rise; 
The tears spring starting from his haggard eyes : 
Trembling he sat, and shrank in abject fears, 
From his vile visage wip'd the scalding tears. 
"While to his neighbor each express'd his thought 5 
Ye gods ! what wonders has Ulysses wrought ! 
"What fruits his conduct and his courage yield ! 
Great in the council, glorious in the field! 
Generous he rises in the crown's defence, 
To curb the factious tongue of insolence. 
Such just examples on offenders shown, 
Sedition silence, and assert the throne. 



92CA.O. HOMER. 53 

PARTING INTERVIEW OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. 

Straight to his roomy palace Hector came ; 
But found not in the mansion her he sought, 
White-arm'd Andromache. She, -with her son, 
And her robed handmaid stood upon the tower 
"Wailing with loud lament. But when in vain 
He sought within her house his blameless wife, 
Hector, advanced upon the threshold, stood 
And to the damsels spake : Now tell me true, 
Ye damsels 1 whither from her house went forth 
The fair Andromache? say, doth she seek 
Her husband's sisters, or her brethren's wives, 
Or at Minerva's temple join the train 
Of Trojan women, who propitiate now 
With offerings the tremendous Deity ? 

The careful women of the house-hold then 
Address'd reply: To tell thee, Hector, truth, 
• As thou requirest, neither doth she seek 
Her husband's sisters, nor her brethren's wives, 
Nor at Minerva's temple join the train 
Of Trojan women who propitiate now 
With offerings the tremendous Deity. 
But she has mounted on a massive tower 
Of Troy ; for that she heard the Trojan host 
Were worsted, while the strength of Greeks prevailed. 
So hastening rush'd she to the city wall, 
Like to one frantic, with the nurse and child. 
The women of the household said : and forth 
Sprang Hector from the mansion, and trod back 
His footsteps through the stately rows of streets. 
Crossing the spacious city, he now reach'd 
The Sceean gates ; through them his passage lay 
Forth to the field. But then his high-dower'd wife 
Came running on his steps. Andromache, 
Eetion's daughter ; who in woody tracts 
Of Hypoplacian Thebes once stretch'd his sway 
O'er the Cilicians. So his daughter lived, 
The bride of Hector with the brazen helm ; 
Who now came running on his steps; while close 
The handmaid follow'd her, and at her breast 
The babe, as yet a tender innocent, 
Darling of Hector, fair as any star, 
Whom Hector named Scamandrius ; they of Troy, 
Astyanax; since Hector was alone 
Their city's safeguard. He, on their approach, 
Casting a look upon his infant boy, 
Silently smiled. Andromache, all bathed 
In tears, stood by ; and, clinging to his hand, 
Address'd him : ' Noble husband ! thy great heart 
Will sure destroy thee. Thou no pity hast 



54 HOMER. [Lect.IL 

■ For this thy infant son and wretched me, 
"Whom thou wilt leave a widow. For the Greeks 
"Will slay thee soon with overpowering charge 
Of numbers. It were better far that I, 
Once reft of thee, should sink within the grave. 
I have no other comfort when thy life 
Has yielded to its destiny; but grief 
Must be my portion. Father have I none, 
Nor mother. The high-born Achilles slew 
My father when he laid the city waste 
Of the Cilicians, Thebes with lofty gates. 
He slew Eetion, but despoiled him not ; 
For he was bound by secret vows; and burn'd 
His body with his variegated mail, 
And heap'd a mount upon him; and the nymphs 
That haunt the hills, Jove's daughters, planted it 
"With circle of tall elms. Seven brothers, too, 
Were mine within the mansion where we dwelt; 
These in one day were hurried to the grave. 
The fleet of foot, Achilles highly born, 
Destroyed them all, surpris'd among their herds 
And flocks. My mother, who the woody tracts 
Of Hypoplacia sway'd, he hither led 
"With all her treasures ; yet a ransom took 
And sent her free. But in her father's house 
She was death-stricken by Diana's darts. 
Thou, Hector, art my father ! thou to me 
Art mother, brother, all my joy of life, 
My husband! come, be merciful, remain 
Here in this turret ; make not of this child 
An orphan, nor a widow of thy wife. 
Command the Trojan army to a halt 
At the wild fig-tree, where the city lies 
Most easy of ascent, and most exposed 
The rampart to assault. Already thrice 
The bravest of their warriors have essay'd 
To force the wall; the fam'd Idomeneus, 
And either Ajax, and brave Diomed, 
And Atreus' sons: whether some skilful seer 
Have prophesied before them, or their minds 
Have prompted them spontaneous to the act.' 
At these her words the lofty Hector shook 
His party-colored horse-hair plume, and spoke : 
1 Believe it, oh my wife 1 these same sad thoughts 
Have touch'd me nearly; but I also fear 
The Trojans and the women fair of Troy, 
If like a dastard I should skulk apart 
From battle. Nor to this my own free mind 
Prompts me; for I was trained from earliest year? 
To a brave spirit; and have learn'd to fight 
Still in the Trojan van, and still maintain 
My country's mighty honor and my own. 



920 AC] HOMER. 55 

I know too well, and in my heart and soul 

I feel the deep conviction, that a time 

Will come when sacred Troy shall be no more, 

But Priam and his people be destroy'd 

From off the face of earth. The after -woe 

Of these my countrymen afflicts me not; 

No, nor the grief of Hecuba's despair, 

Nor kingly Priam's, nor the woeful lot 

Of brethren, brave and many, who shall fall 

Beneath their foes, as thine, Andromache ! 

When some stern Grecian, with his mail of brass, 

Shall lead thee in thy tears away, and snatch 

The light of freedom from thee : when, detain'd 

At Argos, thou shalt weave the color 'd web, 

Task'd by another, or shall waters bear 

Prom fountains of Hyperia, sore averse 

And faint, yet yielding to the hard control 

That lays the burthen on thee. Haply then 

Some passer, looking on thy tears, may cry: 

"This was the wife of Hector, who was once 

Chief warrior of the Trojans when they fought 

With their fam'd horses round the walls of Troy." 

So will he say: and thou wilt grieve afresh 

At loss of him who might have warded off 

The day of slavery. But may earth have heap'd 

The hill upon my corse ere of thy cries 

My ear be conscious, or my soul perceive 

The leading of thy sad captivity.' 

So spake the, noble Hector ; and with hands 
Outstretch'd bent forward to embrace his child. 
The babe against the damsel's broad-zoned breast 
Lean'd backward, clinging with a cry, disturb'd 
At his lov'd father's aspect, and in fear 
Of the keen brass that glazed upon his gaze, 
And horse-hair sweeping crest that nodded fierce 
Upon the helmet's cone. The father dear, 
And honor'd mother to each other laugh' d: 
Instant the noble Hector from his head 
Lifted the casque, and plac'd it on the ground, 
Far-beaming where it stood ; then kissed his boy, 
And dandled in his arms; imploring thus 
Jove, and the other Deities of heaven : 
' Hear, Jupiter ! and every God on high ! 
Grant this may come to pass ! that, he, my son, 
May shine among the Trojans in renown 
And strength as I myself, and reign o'er Troy 
In valor ; that of him it may be said 
By one who sees him coming from the field 
"Truly the son transcends the father's deeds!" 
Grant him to slay his enemy, and bear . 
The bloody trophy back and glad the heart 
Of this his mother !" So he said, and placed 



56 HOMER. [Lect.IL 

The babe -within his own beloved's arms: 
She softly laid him on her balmy breast, 
Smiling through tears. The husband at that sight 
Melted in pity, with his hand he smooth'd 
Her cheek, and spoke again these gentle words : 
' Noblest of women ! do not grieve me thus ; , 
Against concurring fate no mortal man 
Can send me to the grave ; and this I say, 
That none who once has breath'd the breath of life, 
Coward or brave, can hope to shun his fate; 
But hie thee to thy mansion, that thy works, 
The loom and distaff, may engage thy thoughts. 
Go task thy maidens. War must be the care, 
And mine the chief, and every man of Troy.' 

The noble Hector said, and raised fiom earth 
His horse-hair crested helm. With homeward step 
Hi3 dear wife parted from him, and turn'd back 
Her eyes, the fast tears trickling down her cheek. 



THE EMBASSY OF ULYSSES, AJAX, AND PHCENIX, TO ACHILLES. 

And now arriv'd, where, on the sandy bay, 
The Myrmidonian tents and vessels lay; 
Amus'd, at ease, the godlike man they found, 
Pleas'd with the solemn harp's harmonious sound. 
(The well-wrought harp from conquer'd Theboe came, 
Of polish'd silver was its costly frame:) 
With this he soothes his angry soul, and sings 
Th' immortal deeds of heroes and of kings, 
Patroclus only of the royal train, 
Plac'd in his tent, attends the lofty strain: 
Pull opposite he sat, and listen'd long, 
In silence waiting till he ceas'd the song, 
Unseen the Grecian embassy proceeds 
To his high tent ; the great Ulysses leads. 
Achilles starting, as the chiefs he spied, 
Leap'd from his seat, and laid the harp aside. 
With like surprise arose Mencetius' son: 
Pelides grasp'd their hands, and thus begun: 

Princes, all hail ! whatever brought you here, 
Or strong necessity, or urgent fear ; 
Welcome, though Greeks ! for not as foes ye came ; 
To me more dear than all that bear the name. 

With that the chiefs beneath his roof he led, 
And plac'd in seats with purple carpets spread. 
Then thus — Patroclus, crown a larger bowl, 
Mix purer wine, and open every soul, 
Of all the warriors yonder host can send, 
Thy friend must honor these, and these thy friend. 
****** 
That done, to Phcenix Ajax gave the sign; 
Not unperceiv'd; Ulysses erown'd with wine 



920A.C] HOMEE. 57 

The foaming bowl, and instant thus began, 
His speech addressing to the godlike man: 

Health to Achilles ! happy are thy guests ! 
Not thus more honor'd "whom Atrides feasts : 
Though generous plenty crown your loaded boards, 
That A gamemnon's regal tent affords : 
But greater cares sit heavy on our souls, 
Not eas'd by banquets, or by flowing bowls. 
What scenes of slaughter in yon fields appear ! 
The dead we mourn, and for the living fear; 
Greece on the brink of fate all dreadful stands, 
And owns no help but from thy saving hands : 
Troy and her aids for ready vengeance call ; 
Their threatening tents already shade our wall : 
Hear how with shouts their conquests they proclaim, 
And point at every ship their vengeful flame ! 
For them the father of the gods declares, 
Theirs are the omens, and his thunder theirs. 
See, full of Jove, avenging Hector rise ! 
See ! Heaven and earth the raging chief defies ; 
"What fury in his breast, what lightning in his eyes ! 
He waits but for the morn ;, to sink in flame 
The ships, the Greeks, and all the Grecian name. 
Heavens ! how my country's woes distract my mind, 
Lest fate accomplish all his rage design'd ! 
And must we, gods ! our heads inglorious lay 
In Trojan dust, and this the fatal day ? 
Eeturn, Achilles ! oh, return, though late, 
To save thy Greeks, and stop the course of fate : 
If in that heart or grief or courage lies, 
Rise to redeem ; ah yet, to conquer, rise ! 
The day may come, when all our warriors slain, 
That heart shall melt, that courage rise in vain. 
Regard in time, O prince divinely brave ! 
These wholesome counsels which thy father gave. 
"When Peleus in his aged arms embrac'd 
His parting son these accents were his last : 
My child ! with strength, and glory, and success, 
Thy arms may Juno and Minerva bless ! 
Trust that to Heaven ; but thou thy cares engage 
To calm thy passions and subdue thy rage : 
From gentler manners let thy glory grow, 
And shun contention, the sure source of woe ; 
That young and old may in thy praise combine, 
The virtues of humanity be thine — 
This now despis'd advice thy father gave ; 
Ah 1 cheek thy anger, and be truly brave. 
If thou wilt yield to great Atrides' prayers, 
Gifts worthy thee his royal hand prepares ; 
If not — but hear me, while I number o'er 
The proffer'd presents, an exhaustless store. 



58 HOMER. [Lect.IL 

Then thus the goddess-born ; Ulysses hear 
A faithful speech, that knows nor art nor fear ; 
What in my secret soul is understood, 
My tongue shall utter, and my deeds make good. 
Let Greece then know, my purpose I retain; 
Nor with new treaties vex my peace in vain. 
"Who dares think one thing, and another tell, 
My heart destests him as the gates of hell. 

Then thus in short my fix'd resolves attend, 
Which nor Atrides nor his Greeks can bend ; 
Long toils, long perils, in their cause I bore, 
But now th' unfruitful glories charm no more. 
Fight, or not fight, a like reward we claim, 
The wretch and hero find their prize the same ; 
Alike regretted in the dust he lies, 
Who yields ignobly, or who bravely dies. 
Of all my dangers, all my glorious pains, 
A life of labors, lo ! what fruit remains ? 
As the bold bird her helpless young attends, 
From danger guards them, and from want defends : 
In search of prey she wings the spacious air, 
And with th' untasted food supplies her care: 
For thankless Greece such hardships have I brav'd, 
Her wives, her infants, by my labors sav'd; 
Long sleepless nights in heavy arms I stood, 
And sweat laborious days in dust and blood. 

My fates long since by Thetis were disclos'd, 

And each alternate, life or fame, propos'd ; 

Here if I stay, before the Trojan town, 

Short is my date, but deathless my renown : 

If I return, I quit immortal praise 

For years on years, and long- extended days. 

Convinc'd, though late, I find my fond mistake, 

And warn the Greeks the wiser choice to make : 

To quit these shores, their native seats enjoy, 

Nor hope the fall of heaven-defended Troy. 

Jove's arm displayed asserts her from the skies ; 

Her hearts are strengthen'd and her glories rise. 

Go then to Greece, report our fix'd design; 

Bid all your councils, all your armies join, 

Let all your forces, all your hearts conspire 

To save the ships, the troops, the chiefs from fire. 

One stratagem has fail'd, and others will: 

Ye find Achilles is unconquered still. 

Go then — digest my message as you may — 

But here this night let reverend Phoenix stay: 

His tedious toils and hoary hairs demand 

A peaceful death in Pthia's friendly land. 

But whether he remain, or sail with me, 

His age be sacred, and his will be free. 

The son of Peleus ceased: the chiefs around 
In silence wrapp'd, in consternation drown' d, 



920A.C] HOMER, 59 

Attend the stern reply. Then Phcenix rose; 
(Down his •white beard a stream of sorrow flows). 
And while the fate of suffering Greece he mourn'd, 
With accents weak these tender words return'd: 

Divine Achilles ! wilt thou then retire, 
And leave our hosts in blood, our fleets on fire? 
If wrath so dreadful fill thy ruthless mind; 
How shall thy friend, thy Phoenix stay behind? 
The royal Peleus, when from Pthia's coast 
He sent thee early to th' Achaian host; 
Thy youth as then in sage debates unskill'd, 
And new to perils of the direful field ; 
He bade me teach thee all the ways of war ; 
To shine in councils, and in camps to dare. 
Never, ah never, let me leave thy side ! 
No time shall part us, and no fate divide. 
Not though the God, that breath'd my life, restore 
The bloom I boasted, and the part I bore, 
When Greece of old beheld my youthful flames, 
Delightful Greece, the land of lovely dames. 
* ****** 

Now be thy rage, thy fatal rage, resign'd; 
A cruel heart ill suits a manly mind: 
The gods, (the only great, and only wise) 
Are mov'd by offerings, vows, and sacrifice; 
Offending man their high compassion wins, 
And daily prayers atone for daily sins. 
Prayers are Jove's daughters, of celestial race, 
Lame are their feet, and wrinkled is their face ; 
With humble mein and with dejected eyes, 
Constant they follow where Injustice flies : 
Injustice, swift, erect, and unconfin'd, 
Sweeps the wide earth, and tramples o'er mankind, 
While prayers, to heal her wrongs, move slow behind 
Who hears these daughters of almighty Jove, 
For him they mediate to the throne above: 
When man rejects the humble suit they make, 
The sire revenges for the daughter's sake; 
From Jove commission'd, fierce Injustice then 
Descends, to punish unrelenting men. 
Oh let not headstrong passion bear the sway; 
These reconciling goddesses obey; 
Due honors to the seed of Jove belong : 
Due honors calm the fierce, and bend the strong. 
Were these not paid thee by the terms we bring, 
Were rage still harbor'd in the haughty king; 
Nor Greece, nor all her fortunes, should engage 
Thy friend to plead against so just a rage. 
But since what honor asks, the general sends, 
And sends by those whom most thy heart commends, 
The best and noblest of the Grecian train; 
Permit not these to sue, and sue in vain! 
******* 



60 HOMFrR. [Lect. IL 

Thus he : the stern Achilles thus replied : 

My second father, and my reverend guide ! 

Thy friend, believe me, no such gifts demands, 

And asks no honors from a mortal's hands; 

Jove honors me, and favors my designs ; 

His pleasure guides me, and his ■will confines ; 
And here I stay (if such his high behest), 
"While life's warm spirit beats within my breast. 
Tet hear one word, and lodge it in thy heart: 
No more molest me on Atrides' part: 
Is it for him these tears are taught to flow, 
For him these sorrows ? for my mortal foe ? 
A generous friendship no cold medium knows, 
Burns with one love, with one resentment glows ; 
One should our interests and our passions be ; 
My friend must hate the man that injures me. 
Do this, my Pbcenix, 'tis a generous part ; 
And share my realms, my honors, and my heart 
Let these return : our voyage or our stay, 
Eest undetermin'd 'till the dawning day. 



THE BATTLE OF THE GODS. 

While yet the gods stood distant, and forbore 

To mix with mortal men, so long the Greeks 

Gloried that their Achilles once again 

Appeared amongst them, who had long forgone 

Distressful war ; the Trojans panic-struck 

Shook every limb, when thus before their eyes 

They saw the son of Peleus, fleet of foot, 

Shining in arms, like Mars the scourge of men. 

But when th' Olympian habitants came down 

Into the throng of men, strife fierce uprose, 

Stirring the people's hearts. Minerva stood 

Beside the deepen'd trench, without the wall, 

And shouted : and anon upon the sands, 

Where dash'd the roaring waves her shout was heard. 

Far distant, like a gloomy whirlwind, Mars 

Stood on Troy's highest turret, and exclaimed, 

Cheering the Trojans on with cries of war ; 

Or running with swift feet cours'd Simois' banks, 

And steep Callicolone. So the blest 

Of heaven mix'd indiscriminate the hosts, 

Spurring their rage, and havoc rang'd it wide. 

The Father of the Deities and men 

Thunder'd from heaven on high. The ocean God 

Heav'd from beneath the immensity of earth, 

And shook the mountain-tops. The roots of Ide 

And all its fountain-gushing summits reeled; 

Troy city and the navy of the Greeks 

Rock'd as in earthquake. Deep beneath the ground 



I20A.C] HOMER. 61 

The Monarch of the dead in darkest hell 
Felt fear, and leap'd affrighted from his throne, 
And shriek'd aloud, lest he that shakes the shores 
Should cleave earth's vault asunder, and the scene 
Of those drear mansions glare upon the sight 
Of gods and men : a dismal wilderness, 
Hoary with desolation, which the blest 
Behold, and shuddering turn their eyes away. 
Such clang arose while gods encountering strove. 



ACHILLES GOING FORTH TO BATTLE. 

They from their rapid ships were pour'd along, 

As the cold snow-flakes from the height of air 

Fly hovering thick, driven by the frosty gust 

Of the north wind, so thickening from the ships 

Throng'd beamy -dazzling helms, and bossy shields, 

And concave breast-plates strong, and ashen spears. 

The splendor flashed against the sky ; wide laughed 

The circling plain with light'ning gleams of brass ; 

And hollow the reverberated sound 

Rose from the tramp of men. Amidst them all, 

Buckling his armor, brave Achilles stood: 

A gnashing sound came from his grinding teeth; 

His eyes were like the glare of fire; his heart 

With anguish past endurance rose and fell. 

So with the Trojans wroth, he sheathed his limbs 

In that same armor which a goddess gave 

And Vulcan's craft had wrought. Around his legs 

He fastened first the greaves that elegant 

"Were clasp'd with clasps of silver ; on his breast 

He drew the cuirass; o'er his shoulders high 

He slung the brazen silver-studded sword; 

Then grasp'd the vast and solid shield, whose gleam 

Shone distant like the moon. As when at sea, 

The glitter of a blazing fire far off 

Appears to mariners ; it burning glows 

High on the mountains in some lonely cote ; 

But them the driving tempests hurry back 

Far from their friends, amidst the fishy seas ; 

So from Achilles' chased and burnish'd shield, 

The splendor glanced in air. He lifted then 

The weighty casque, and placed it on his head. 

The crested helm shone glist'ning like a star ; 

The gilded hair which Vulcan on the cone 

Thick-waving hung, with rustling motion shook, 

And nodded as he stepp'd. Achilles proved 

His armor ; poising every limb to feel 

If the bright gift were fitted to his frame. 

Wings seem'd to lift him and upbear from earth 

The leader of his host. Then forth he drew 



62 HOMER. [Lect. II. 

From his own armory his father's spear, 

Ponderous, and huge, and strong: no other Greek 

Could wield it; but Achilles's arm alone 

Brandish'd the Pelian ash: from Pelion's brow 

The Centaur Chiron for his father fell'd 

The lofty tree, that it might prove the death 

Of heroes. Alcimus, Automedon, 

Tending the coursers, harness'd them, affix'd 

Their gorgeous headstalls, fitted in their jaws 

The bits, and to the strong-cemented car, 

Drawn backward, stretched the reins. Automedon 

Then grasped the pliant scourge of burnish'd thong, 

And sprang above the steeds. Behind in arms 

Achilles mounted, shining all in mail 

Like the high-rolling sun. Then with a shout 

Thus sternly chid the coursers of his sire : 

< Xanthus and Balius ! colts of noble strain ! 

Sprung from Podarges! take ye now more heed, 

And bring your charioteer in safety back 

Into the host of Greece, when we of war 

Have had our fill; nor leave me on the field 

Dead, as ye left Patroclus.' Then replied 

The fieet-hoof'd Xanthus from the chariot-yoke, 

Low bowing down his head, while all his mane 

From the neck-collar loosed without the yoke 

Trail'd till it swept the ground; for Juno then, 

The snowy-arm'd, endued him with a voice: 

' Yes, we will now at least preserve thee safe, 

Valiant Achilles ! but thy deathful day 

Is near at hand ; nor are thy steeds the cause ; 

But a great god, and the strong hand of Fate. 

Not through our tardy sluggishness of pace 

The Trojans from Patroclus' shoulders rent 

His armor ; but that mightiest god, the son 

Of beauteous-hair'd Latona, midst the van 

Slew him, that Hector might be glorified. 

Though with the west wind we should scour the plain, 

Fleetest of gales, yet thou too art decreed 

To perish by a hero and a god.' 

When he had spoken thus the Furies stopp'd 
His vocal utterance. Much disturb'd, replied 
The fleet of foot Achilles : ' Wherefore thus, 
Xanthus, foretellest thou my death? for thee 
It ill beseems. I know my destiny : 
Fate hath decreed that I shall perish here 
Far from my sire, and her who gave me birth ; 
But not for this will I refrain my hand, 
'Till, to the full of slaughter, I have chased 
These Trojans from the field !' He said, and urged 
His steeds, and with a shout rush'd to the van. 



920A.C.] HOMER. 63 



THE SUIT OF PRIAM. 

As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime, 
Pursu'd for murder, flies his native clime) 
Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amaz'd! 
All gaze, all wonder: thus Achilles gaz'd; 
Thus stood th' attendants stupid with surprise; 
All mute, yet seem to question with their eyes ; 
Each look'd on other, none the silence broke, 
Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke: 

Ah think, thou favor'd of the powers divine ! 
Think of thy father's age, and pity mine ! 
In me, that father's reverend image trace, 
Those silver hairs, that venerable face; 
His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see ! 
In all my equal, but in misery ! 
Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate 
Expels him. helpless from his peaceful state ; 
Think, from some powerful foe thou seest him fly, 
And beg protection with a feeble cry. 
Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise ; 
He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes ; 
And hearing, still may hope a better day 
May send him thee, to chase that foe away. 
Tfo comfort to my griefs, no hopes remain, 
The best, the bravest of my sons are slain ! 
Yet what a race, ere Greece to Ilion came, 
The pledge of many a lov'd and loving dame ! 
Nineteen one mother bore — Dead, all are dead ! 
How oft, alas 1 has wretched Priam bled ! 
Still one was left, their loss to recompense : 
His father's hope, his country's last defence. 
Him too thy rage has slain ! beneath thy steel 
Unhappy in his country's cause he fell ! 
For him, through hostile camps I bend my way, 
For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay ; 
Large gifts proportion'd to thy wrath I bear ; 
Oh hear the wretched, and the gods revere 1 
Think of thy father, and this face behold ! 
See him in me, as helpless and as old, 
Though not so wretched: there he yields to me, 
The first of men in sovereign misery ! 
Thus forced to kneel, thus grovelling to embrace 
The scourge and ruin of my realm and race ; 
Suppliant my children's murderer to implore, 
And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore 1 

These words soft pity in the chief inspire, 
Touch'd with the dear remembrance of his sire. 
Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay) 
The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away. 
Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe ; 
And now the mingled tides together flow: 



64: HOMER. [Lect.IL 

This low on earth, that gently bending o'er, 

A father one, and one a son deplore : 

But great Achilles different passions rend, 

And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend. 

Th' infectious softness through the heroes ran ; 

One universal solemn shower began ; 

They bore as heroes, but they felt as men. 

Satiate at length with unavailing woes, 

From the high throne divine Achilles rose; 

The reverend monarch by the hand he rais'd ; 

On his white beard and form majestic gaz'd, 

Not unrelenting ; then serene began 

With words to suit the miserable man. 

Alas ! what weight of anguish hast thou known I 
Unhappy prince! thus guardless and alone 
To pass through foes, and thus undaunted face 
The man whose fury has destroy'd thy race ! 
Heaven sure has arm'd thee with a heart of steel, 
A strength proportion'd to the woes you feel. 
Rise then : let reason mitigate your care ; 
To mourn avails not ; man is born to bear. 
Such is, alas ! the god's severe decree ; 
They, only they, are blest, and only free. 
Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, 
The source of evil one, and one of good ; 
Prom thence the cup of mortal man he fills, 
Blessings to these, to those distributes ills ; 
To most he mingles both. The wretch decreed 
To taste the bad, unmix't, is curst indeed; 
Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven, 
He wanders, out-cast both of earth and heaven. 
The happiest taste not happiness sincere, 
But find the cordial draught is dash'd with care. 
******* 
And since the god his hand has pleas'd to turn, 
And fill thy measures from his bitter urn, 
What sees the son, but hapless heroes' falls ! 
War and the blood of men surround thy walls ! 
What must be, must be. Bear thy lot, nor shed 
These unavailing sorrows o'er the dead ; 
Thou canst not call him from the Stygian shore, 
But thou, alas ! may'st live, to suffer more ! 

To whom the king : oh favor'd of the skies ! 
Here let me grow to earth ! since Hector lies 
On the bare beach depriv'd of obsequies. 
Oh give me Hector ! to my eyes restore 
His corse, and take the gifts : I ask no more. 
Then, as thou may'st, these boundless stores enjoy ; 
Safe may'st thou sail, and turn thy wrath from Troy 1 
So shall thy pity and forbearance give 
A weak old man to see the light and live ! 

Move me no more (Achilles thus replies, 
While kindling anger sparkle in his eyes); 



920A.C] HOMEE. 

Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend; 
To yield thy Hector I myself intend : 
Por know, from Jove my goddess-mother came 
(Old Ocean's daughter, silver-footed dame) ; 
Nor com'st thou but by Heaven ; nor com'st alone, 
Some god impels with courage not thy own: 
No human hand the weighty gates unbarr'd, 
Nor could the boldest of our youth have dar'd 
To pass our outworks, or elude the guard. 
Cease ; lest, neglectful of high Jove's command 
I show thee, king ! thou tread'st on hostile land ; 
Release my knees, thy suppliant arts give o r er, 
And shake the purpose of my soul no more. 

The sire obey'd him, trembling and o'eraw'd, 
Achilles, like a lion, rush'd abroad; 
Automedon and Alcimus attend 
(Whom most he honor'd since he lost his friend); 
These to unyoke the mules and horses went, 
And led the hoary herald to the tent: 
Two splendid mantles and a carpet spread, 
They leave to cover and enwrap the dead. 
Then call the handmaids, with assistant toil 
To wash the body, and anoint with oil, 
Apart from Priam; lest th' unhappy sire, 
Provok'd to passion, once more rouse to ire 
The stern Pelides; and nor sacred age, 
Nor Jove's command should check the rising rage. 
This done, the garments o'er the corse they spread: 
Achilles lifts it to the funeral bed ; 
Then while the body on the car they laid, 
He groans and calls on lov'd Patroclus' shade. 
If in that gloom which never light must know, 
The deeds of mortals touch the ghosts below; 
friend ! forgive me, that I thus fulfil 
(Restoring Hector) Heaven's unquestion'd will. 



THE GROT OF CALYPSO. 

FROM THE ODYSSEY. 

He spoke. The god who mounts the winged winds 
Past to his feet the golden pinions binds, 
That high through fields of air his flight sustain 
O'er the wide earth, and o'er the boundless main. 
He grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly, 
Or in soft slumber seals the wakeful eye : 
Then shoots from heaven to high Pieria's steep, 
And stoops incumbent on the rolling deep. 
Thus o'er the world of waters Hermes flew, 
Till now the distant island rose in view: 
Then swift ascending from the azure wave, 
He took the path that winded to the cave. 
5 



qq HOMER. |Lect.II. 

Large "was the grot, in which the nymph he found 

(The faif-hair'd nymph with every beauty crown'd). 

She sate and sang; the rocks resound her lays: 

The cave was brighten d with a rising blaze : 

Cedar and frankincense, an odorous pile, 

Flarn'd on the hearth, and wide perfum'd the isle ; 

"While she with work and song the time divides; 

And through the loom the golden shuttle guides. 

"Without the grot a vicious sylvan scene 

Appear'd around, and groves of living green; 

Poplars and alders ever quivering play'd, 

And nodding cypress formed a fragrant shade; 

On whose high branches, waving with the storm, 

The birds of broadest wing their mansions form, 

The chough, the sea-mew, the loquacious crow, 

And scream aloft, and skim the deeps below. 

Depending vines the shelving cavern screen, 

"With purple clusters blushing through the green. 

Four limpid fountains from the cliffs distil; 

And every fountain pours a several rill, 

In mazy windings wandering down the hill, 

"Where blooming meads with vivid greens were crown'd, 

And glowing violets threw odors round. 

A scene, where if a god should cast his sight, 

A god might gaze, and wander with delight ! 

Joy touch'd the messenger of heaven: he stay'd 

Entranc'd, and all the blissful haunts survey'd. 

Him, entering in the cave, Calypso knew; 

For powers celestial to each other's view 

Stand still confest, though distant far they lie 

To habitants of earth, or sea, or sky. 

But sad Ulysses, by himself apart, 

Pour'd the big sorrows of his swelling heart ; 

All on the lonely shore he sate to weep, 

And roll'd his eyes around the restless deep ; 

Tow'rd his loVd coast he roll'd his eyes in vain, 

Till dimm'd with rising grief, they stream'd again. 

Wow graceful seated on her shining throne, 
To Hermes thus the nymph divine begun : 

God of the golden wand ! on what behest 
Arriv'st thou here an unexpected guest? 
Lov'd as thou art, thy free injunctions lay ; 
'Tis mine, with joy and duty to obey. 
Till now a stranger, in a happy hour 
Approach, and taste the dainties of my bower. 

Thus having spoke, the nymph the table spread 
(Ambrosial cates, with nectar rosy -red) ; 
Hermes the hospitable rite partook, 
Divine refection ! then, recruited, spoke : 

"What mov'd this journey from my native sky, 
A goddess asks, nor can a god deny; 



920 A.C.] HOMER. 67 

Hear then the truth. By mighty Jove's command 

Unwilling have I trod this pleasing land ; 

For who, self-mov'd, with weary wing would sweep 

Such length of ocean and unmeasur'd deep : 

A world of waters ! far from all the ways 

Where men frequent, or sacred altars blaze? 

But to Jove's will submission we must pay ; 

What power so great to dare to disobey ? 

A man, he says, a man resides with thee, 

Of all his kind most worn with misery ; 

The Greeks, (whose arms for nine long years employ'd 

Their force on Ilion, in the tenth destroy'd) 

At length embarking in a luckless hour, 

With conquest proud, incens'd Minerva's power : 

Hence on the guilty race her vengeance hmTd 

With storms pursued them through the liquid world. 

There all his vessels sunk beneath the wave ! 

There all his dear companions found their grave ! 

Sav'd from the jaws of death by heaven's decree, 

The tempest drove him to these shores and thee. 

Him, Jove now orders to his native lands 

Straight to dismiss ; so destiny commands : 

Impatient fate his near return attends, 

And calls him to his country, and his friends. 

Ev'n to her inmost soul the goddess shook ; 
Then thus her anguish and her passion broke: 

Ungracious gods ! with spite and envy curst ! 
Still to your own etherial race the worst ! 
"X.e envy mortal and immortal joy, 
And love, the only sweet of life, destroy. 
Did ever goddess by her charms engage 
A favor'd mortal, and not feel your rage ? 
So when Aurora sought Orion's love, 
Her joys disturb'd your blissful hours above, 
Till, in Ortygia, Dian's winged dart 
Had pierc'd the hapless hunter to the heart. 
So when the covert of the thrice-ear'd field 
Saw stately Ceres to her passion yield, 
Scarce could Iasion taste her heavenly charms, 
But Jove's swift lightning scorch'd him in her arms. 
And is it now my turn, ye mighty powers I 
Am I the envy of your blissful bowers ? 
A man, an outcast to the storm and wave, 
It was my crime to pity, and to save ; 
When he whose thunders rent his bark in twain, 
And sunk his brave companions in the main 
Alone, abandon'd, in mid ocean tost, 
The sport of winds, and driven from every coast, 
Hither this man of misery I led, 
Received the friendless, and the hungry fed; 
Nay promis'd (vainly promis'd !) to bestow 
Immortal life, except from age and woe. 



68 HOMER. [Lect.IL 

'Tis past — and Jove decrees he shall remove ; 
Gods as we are, we are but slaves to Jove. 
Go then he may (he must, if he ordain, 
Try all those dangers, all those deeps, again) : 
But never, never shall Calypso send 
To toils like these her husband and her friend. 
"What ships have I, what sailors to convey, 
What oars to cut the long laborious way ? 
Yet I'll direct the safest means to go; 
That last advice is all I can bestow. 

To her the power who bears the charming rod: 
Dismiss the man, nor irritate the god; 
Prevent the rage of him who reigns above, 
For what so dreadful as the wrath of Jove ? 
Thus having said, he cut the cleaving sky, 
And in a moment vanish'd from her eye. 
The nymph, obedient to divine command, 
To seek Ulysses pac'd along the sand. 
Him pensive on the lonely beach she found, 
With streaming eyes in briny torrents drown'd, 
And inly pining for his native shore; 
For now the soft enchantress pleas'd no more: 
For now, reluctant, and constrain'd by charms, 
Absent he lay in her desiring arms, 
In slumber wore the heavy night away, 
On rocks and shores consum'd the tedious day; 
There sate all desolate, and sigh'd alone, 
With echoing sorrows made the mountains groan, 
And roll'd his eyes o'er all the restless main, 
Till, dimm'd with rising grief, they stream'd again. 



tniw tit? Cjiirir. 

HESIOD. — TYRT^EUS. — • ARCHILOCHUS. — TERPANDER. — ALCMAN.— 
STESICHORUS. — ALO^EUS. — ^SOR — SOLON. 

HESIOD, a contemporary of Homer, was bora, according to the best 
authority, 907 A.C. His father was a native of Cumse, an JEolian 
island, but want of success in his calling, whatever that may have been, 
induced him to remove to Ascra, in Bocotia, a small village at the base of 
Mount Helicon. Here Hesiod was born, and, from the poverty of his 
family, was brought up to the occupation of a shepherd, and tended, in 
his boyhood, the flocks of a neighboring herdman near Mount Helicon. 
"With this condition he, however, soon became dissatisfied ; and musing, 
as he himself tells us, upon the severity of his fate, while seated near the 
mountain's base, the Muses descended, held free converse with him, 
and invited him to enter into their service. This incident he relates in 
the following verses : — 

Erewhile as they the shepherd swain behold, 
Feeding beneath the sacred mount his fold, 
With love of charming song his breast they fired; 
There me the Heavenly Muses first inspired ; 
There when the Maids of Jove the silence broke 
To Hesiod thus the Shepherd swain they spoke. — 

To this incident Ovid, the Koman poet, evidently alludes in the fol- 
lowing lines : — 

Nor Clio, nor her sisters, have I seen, 

As Hesiod saw them on the Ascreean green. 

At the death of his father, which probably occurred soon after, Hesiod 
became a priest in the temple of the Muses, a small paternal estate was 
left to be equally divided between Hesiod and his brother Perses. Perses 
was, however, cold and selfish in disposition, forming a remarkable con- 
trast to the warmth and fervor of his brother's nature ; and in order to 
appropriate the entire property to his own purposes, he corrupted the 



70 HESIOD. [Lect. III. 

judges who were appointed to divide it, and by this means effected his 
purpose. Hesiod soon became informed of this circumstance ; but, in- 
stead of reproaching his brother, as would have been natural, for the 
baseness of his conduct, he addressed one of his finest poetic strains to 
him, in which he set forth, with great clearness and force, the vanity of 
riches when obtained at the sacrifice of honor and virtue. 

The next incident of importance in the life of Hesiod, is the con- 
test between him and Homer for a poetic prize. The occasion which 
elicited this contest was as follows : — Archidamus, king of the island of 
Eubcea, had early instituted games and festivals to be annually observed 
in Chalcis, the capital of his kingdom. These ceremonies were for many 
years regularly sustained by his sons and successors. On one of these 
occasions Homer and Hesiod met at the court of Chalcis, and the poetic 
prize contended for was a Tripod. The judges who presided on the occa- 
sion decided in favor of Hesiod, and in joyful exultation the Ascrasan bard 
immediately dedicated the Tripod to the Muses, placing upon it the fol- 
ing inscription : — 

This Hesiod vows to th' Heliconian Nine, 
In Chalcis won from Homer the divine. 

This incident is found in every account the ancients have left us of the 
life of Hesiod ; but it is proper to remark that its correctness has often 
been questioned ; and doubts have even existed whether Homer and He- 
siod ever met each other. Cicero explicity declares that they were not 
even contemporaries. But Plutarch, on the contrary, relates, in his life 
of Philip of Mace don, a dispute which occurred between that prince and 
his son Alexander, on this subject ; and says that while Philip contended 
that the decision of the judges in favor of Hesiod was sufficient evidence 
of his superiority on this occasion, Alexander replied that the judges were 
swains and not kings, and therefore not capable of appreciating Homer's 
poetry* 

In the service of the Muses Hesiod passed his life to a very advanced 
age, and finally retired to Locris, a town situated relatively to Mount 
Parnassus as Ascra had been to Mount Helicon. Here, after passing a 
few years in retirement and repose, at the residence of a friend, he was 
accidentally murdered, on a mistaken report that he had been identified 
with an act of baseness of which his friend had unfortunately been guilty ; 
and Solon, the distinguished Athenian lawgiver, relates, that his body, 
immediately after his death, was contemptuously thrown into the adjacent 
sea, there to perish without the observance of funeral rites. Plutarch, 
however, relates that the body of Hesiod was conveyed to the shore by a 
dolphin, and was afterwards discovered through the sagacity of the vener- 
able poet's dog, and decently buried by the inhabitants of Orchomenos, 
a town in Boeotia, with the following epitaph over his tomb : — 



907A.C.] HESIOD. . 7l 

The fallow vales of Asera gave him birth: 
His bones are cover'd by the Minyan earth: 
Supreme in Hellas Hesiod's glories rise, 
"Whom men discern by wisdom's touchstone wise. 

Among the Greek Inscriptions is an epitaph on Hesiod, with the name 
of Alcseus, which has the air of being a genuine ancient production, from 
its breathing the beautiful classic simplicity of the old Grecian school : 

Nymphs in their founts midst Locris' woodland gloom, 
Laved Hesiod's corse, and piled his grassy tomb: 
The shepherds there the yellow honey shed, 
And milk of goats was sprinkled o'er his head : 
With voice so sweetly breathed that sage would sing, 
"Who sipp'd pure drops from every Muse's spring. 

The undisputed works of Hesiod are the Works and Days, the Theog- 
ony, and the Shield of Hercules. The subject of the i Works and Days' 
is entirely agricultural, and in the opening of the poem, the different ages 
of the world are described with peculiar force and beauty. The story 
of Pandora's Box is here told with greater elegance than by any other 
poet of antiquity. This story is followed by a description of the five dif- 
ferent ages into which the ancient poets were fond of fancying the history 
of the world to be divided. The first age was the age of gold. It em- 
braced the reign of Saturn, and its brilliancy and glory were appropriately 
typified by the precious metal selected to represent it. The second age 
was the age of silver, embracing the period that commenced with the 
assumption of supreme power by Jupiter, and continued as long as that 
august Deity held the throne of heaven. The third age was the age of 
brass. This age occupied the space intervening between the supreme rule 
of Jupiter, and the age of demigods and heroes. The glory of the former 
periods of the world had now passed away, but still the remembrance of 
that glory was carefully preserved. The fourth age was the age of demi- 
gods and heroes, and was known amongst the Greek poets as the heroic 
age. The fifth and last age was the iron age, in which the poet, in the 
following lines, pathetically and beautifully laments that it was his own 
hard fortune to live. 

Oh would that nature had denied me birth 
Midst this fifth race, this iron age of earth; 
That long before within the grave I lay, 
Or long hereafter could behold the day. 

The didactic lessons which the c Works and Days' contains, were re- 
garded by the ancients as of so great importance, that the poem was, for 
ages, used throughout Greece, for purposes of recitation in the ordinary 
course of moral instruction in their seats of learning. Hence, in estimat- 



72 HESIOD. [Lect. Ill 

ing the character of Hesiod, we must separate those superstitions which 
belong to traditionary mythology, from the system of opinions which re- 
spected the guidance of human life ; the accountableness of nations and 
individuals to a heavenly judge ; and the principles of public equity and 
popular justice which he derived from the national institutions. If we 
examine the ' Works and Days' in this view of its tendency and spirit, 
we shall find abundant cause for admiration and respect of a man, who, 
born and nurtured in the lap of heathen superstition, could shadow out the 
maxims of truth in such beautiful allegories, and recommend the practice 
of virtue in such powerful and affecting appeals to the conscience and the 
reason. It was from this work of Hesiod that Virgil, the Roman poet, 
borrowed the entire outline of his Georgics. 

'The Theogony' is a history and genealogy of the Grecian gods, em- 
bracing the vast number of thirty thousand. The early part of this 
poem is tedious and uninteresting ; but in the latter part, where the gods 
are arrayed in battle against each other, the sublimity approximates to 
some of the most spirited passages of Homer, and doubtless afforded to 
Milton important hints for his battles of the angels in Paradise Lost. 
But the genius of Hesiod, though of a high order, was far inferior to that 
of Homer. His observations throughout the \ Works and Days,' are of 
a practical kind, and are generally very sensible, and many of them even 
beautiful ; but he wanted the thrilling and creative power, and also the 
deep pathos of the great Ionian bard. In the ' Theogony,' after the 
minute catalogue of the Grecian gods is ended, we find some few passages, 
as already observed, that indicated very considerable power ; but in jus- 
tice to Hesiod it should, perhaps, be observed, that there is in the subject 
of his poem little beyond his celestial contests to call forth that vast and 
vivid power, which the subject of the Iliad of Homer naturally and con- 
stantly elicited. 

We shall close our remarks upon this ancient poet with the description 
of the Creation of Pandora, Dispensations of Providence to the Just and 
Unjust, and the Battle of the Giants. 



CREATION OF PANDORA. 

FROM THE WORKS AND DAYS. 

The food of man in deep concealment lies, 
The angry gods have veil'd it from our eyes. 
Else had one day bestov/d sufficient cheer, 
And though inactive fed thee through the year. 
Then might thy hand have laid the rudder by, 
In black'ning 6moke forever hung on high ; 
Then had the laboring ox foregone the soil, 
And patient mules had found reprieve from toil. 



907A.C.] HESIOD. 

But Jove eonceal'd our food, incensed at heart, 

Since mock'd by wise Prometheus' wily art. 

Sore ills to man devised the Heavenly Sire, 

And hid the shining element of fire. 

Prometheus, then, benevolent of soul, 

In hollow reed the spark recovering stole, 

Cheering to man, and mock'd the god whose gaze 

Serene rejoices in the lightning's rays. 

' Oh son of Japhet ! with indignant heart 

Spake the cloud-gatherer ; oh unmatch'd in art ! 

Exultest thou in this the flame retriev'd, 

And dost thou triumph in the God deceiv'd? 

But thou, with the posterity of man, 

Shalt rue the fraud whence mightier ills began: 

I will send evil for thy stealthy fire, 

An ill which all shall love, and all desire.' 

The Sire who rules the earth and sways the pole 
Had said, and laughter fill'd his secret soul. 
He bade the crippled god his hest obey, 
And mould with tempering water plastic clay; 
Imbreathe the human voice within her breast, 
"With firm-strung nerves th' elastic limbs invest: 
Her aspect fair as goddesses above, 
A virgin's likeness with the brows of love. 
He bade Minerva teach the skill that dyes 
The web with colors as the shuttle flies : 
He call'd the magic of Love's charming queen 
To breathe around a witchery of mien: 
Then plant the rankling stings of keen desire, 
And cares that trick the limbs with prank'd attire : 
Bade Hermes last impart the craft refined 
Of thievish manners and a shameless mind. 

He gives command, th' inferior powers obey, 
The crippled artist moulds the temper'd clay: 
A maid's coy image rose at Jove's behest; 
Minerva clasp'd the zone, diffused the vest; 
Adored Persuasion and the Graces young 
Her taper 'd limbs with golden jewels hung; 
Pound her smooth brow the beauteous-tressed Hours 
A garland twined of Spring's purpureal flowers ; 
The whole attire Minerva's graceful art 
Disposed, adjusted, form'd to every part ; 
And last the winged herald of the skies, 
Slayer of Argus, gave the gift of lies ; 
Gave triekish manners, honey'd words instill'd, 
As he that rolls the deep'ning thunder will'd: 
Then by the feather'd messenger of Heaven, 
The name Pandora to the maid was given: 
Fbr all the gods conferr'd a gifted grace 
To crown this mischief of the mortal race. K 

The Sire commands the winged herald bear 
The finish'd nymph, th' inextricable snare: 



74 HESIOD. [Lect. ni. 

To Epinietheus was the present brought ; 
Prometheus' -warning vanish'd from his thought : 
That he disclaim each offering from the skies, 
And straight restore, lest ill to men arise. 
Eut he receiv'd, and conscious knew too late 
Th' insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate. 

On earth of yore the sons of men abode 
From evil free and labor's galling load; 
Free from diseases that with racking rage 
Precipitate the pale decline of age. 
Now swift the days of manhood haste away, 
And misery's pressure turns the temples gray. 
The woman's hands an ample casket bear : 
She lifts the lid — she scatters ills in air. 
Hope sole remain'd within, nor took her flight, 
Beneath the vessel's verge conceal'd from light : 
Or ere she fled, the maid, advised by Jove, 
Seal'd fast th' unbroken cell, and dropp'd the lid above. 
Issued the rest in quick dispersion hurl'd, 
And woes innumerous roam'd the breathing world: 
"With ills the land is full, with ills the sea ; 
Diseases haunt our frail humanity : 
Self wandering through the noon, the night, they glide, 
Voiceless — a voice the power all-wise denied : 
Know then this awful truth — it is not given 
T elude the wisdom of omniscient Heaven. 



DISPENSATIONS OF PROVIDENCE TO THE JUST AND THE UNJUST. 

With crooked judgments, lo ! the oath's dread God 
[ Avenging runs and tracks them where they trod. 
Rough are the ways of justice as the sea, 
Dragg'd to and fro by men's corrupt decree : 
Bribe-pamper'd men ! whose hands perverting draw 
The right aside and warp the wrested law. 
Though, while corruption on their sentence waits, 
They thrust pale Justice from their haughty gates ; 
Invisible their steps the Virgin treads, 
And musters evils o'er their sinful heads. 
She with the dark of air her form arrays, 
And walks in awful grief the city ways ; 
Her wail is heard, her tear upbraiding falls 
O'er their stain'd manners, their devoted walls. 
But they who never from the right have stray'd, 
Who as the citizen the stranger aid ; 
They and their cities flourish ; genial Peace 
Dwells in their borders, and their youth increase ; 
Nor Jove, whose radiant eyes behold afar 
Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war, 
Nor dearth nor scath the upright just pursues ; 
Feasts all their care; while earth abundance strews. 



907 A.C.] HESIOD. 75 

Rich are their mountain oaks ; the topmost tree 

The acorns fill ; its trunk the hiving bee : 

Their sheep with fleeces pant : their women's race 

Reflect both parents in the infant face : 

Still flourish they, nor tempt with ships the main ; 

The fruits of earth are pour'd from every plain. 

But o'er the wicked race, to whom belong 
The thought of evil and the deed of wrong, 
Saturnian Jove, of wide-beholding eyes, 
Bids the dark signs of retribution rise : 
And oft the crimes of one destructive fall, 
The crimes of one are visited on all. 
The God sends down his angry plagues from high, 
Famine and pestilence ; in heaps they die : 
He smites with barrenness the marriage bed, 
And generations moulder with the dead : 
Again in vengeance of his wrath he falls 
On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls : 
Scatters their ships of war ; and where the sea 
Heaves high its mountain billows, there is he. 

Ponder, oh judges ! in your inmost thought 
The retribution by his vengeance wrought. 
Invisible the gods are ever nigh, 
Pass through the midst and bend th' all-seeing eye : 
The men who grind the poor, who wrest the right, 
Awless of Heaven's revenge, are naked to their sight. 
For thrice ten thousand holy demons 'rove 
This breathing world, the delegates of Jove. 
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys 
The upright judgments, and th' unrighteous ways. 
A virgin pure is Justice, and her birth 
August from him, who rules the heavens and earth : 
A creature glorious to the gods on high, 
"Whose mansion is yon everlasting sky. 
Driven by despiteful wrong she takes her seat, 
In lowly grief, at Jove's eternal feet. 
There of the soul unjust her plaints ascend ; 
So rue the nations when their kings offend : 
When, uttering wiles and brooding thoughts of ill, 
They bend their laws and wrest them to their will. 
Oh ! gorged with gold, ye kingly judges, hear ! 
Make straight your path ; your crooked judgments fear ; 
That the foul record may no more be seen, 
Erased, forgotten, as it ne'er had been ! 



BATTLE OF THE GIANTS. 

FROM THE THEOGONY. 

All on that day stirr'd up th' enormous strife, 
Female and male ; Titanic gods, and sons 
And daughters of old Saturn ; and that band 
Of giant brethren, whom from forth th' abyss 



76 HESIOD. [Lect.III. 

Of darkness under earth deliverer Jove 
Sent up to light : grim forms and strong with force 
Gigantic ; arms of hundred-handed gripe 
Burst from their shoulders; fifty heads upsprang 
Cresting their muscular limbs. They thus opposed 
In dismal conflict 'gainst the Titan stood, 
In all their sinewy hands wielding aloft 
Precipitous rocks. On th' other side alert 
The Titan phalanx closed ; then hands of strength 
Join'd prowess, and show'd forth the works of war. 
Th' immeasurable sea tremendous dash'd 
"With roaring, earth-resounded, the broad Heaven 
Groan'd shattering; huge Olympus reel'd throughout 
Down to its rooted base beneath the rush 
Of those immortals. The dark chasm of hell 
"Was shaken with the trembling, with the tramp 
Of hollow footsteps and strong battle-strokes, 
And measureless uproar of wild pursuit. 
So they against each other through the air 
Hurl'd intermix'd their weapons, scattering groans 
"Where'er they fell. The voice of armies rose 
"With rallying shout through their starr'd firmament, 
And with a mighty war-cry both the hosts 
Encountering closed. Nor longer then did Jove 
Curb down his force, but sudden in his soul 
There grew dilated strength, and it was fill'd 
"With his omnipotence; his whole of might 
Broke from him, and the godhead rush'd abroad. 
The vaulted sky, the mount Olympus, flash'd 
"With his continual presence, for he pass'd 
Incessant forth and lighten'd where he trod. 
Thrown from his nervous grasp the lightnings flew 
Reiterated swift, the whirling flash 
Cast sacred splendor, and the thunderbolt 
Tell. Then on every side the foodful earth 
Roar'd in the burning flame, and far and near 
The trackless depth of forests crashed with fire. 
Yea the broad earth burn'd red, the floods of Nile 
Glow'd, and the desert waters of the sea. 
Round and around the Titan's earthly forms 
Roll'd the hot vapor, and on fiery surge 
Stream'd upward swathing in one boundless blaze 
The purer air of heaven. Keen rush'd the light 
In quivering splendor from the writhen flash ; 
Strong though they were, intolerable smote 
Their orbs of sight, and with bedimming glare 
Scorch'd up their blasted vision. Through the gulf 
Of yawning Chaos the supernal flame 
Spread mingling fire with darkness. But to see 
"With human eye, and hear with ear of man, 
Had been as on a time the heaven and earth 
Met hurtling in mid- air, as nether earth 



684A.C] TYRT^US. 77 

Crash'd from the centre, and the wreck of heaven 
Fell ruining from high. Not less when gods 
Grappled with gods, the shout and clang of arms 
Commingled, and the tumult roar'd from heaven. 
The whirlwinds were abroad, and hollow arous'd 
A shaking and a gathering dark of dust, 
Crushing the thunders from the clouds of air, 
"Hot thunderbolts and flames, the fiery darts 
Of Jove; and in the midst of either host 
They bore upon their blast the cry confused 
Of battle, and the shouting. For the din 
Tumultuous of that sight-appalling strife 
Rose without bound. Stern strength of hardy proof 
"Wreak'd there its deeds till weary sank the war. 

After the death of Homer and Hesiod, more than two centuries elapsed 
before Greece produced another poet whose genius was sufficiently ele- 
vated to preserve his name from oblivion ; and the poet whom we are 
next to notice would not, perhaps, now be known to literature, were it not 
for the important incident in Grecian history with which he is identified. 

Tyrtseus, the poet to whom we here allude, was a native of Miletus, 
in Ionia, and was born in that city 684 A.C. Of his family, and of the 
incidents of his early life, we have little knowledge, farther than that he 
early devoted himself to music and poetry as a profession, and was an 
instructor of youth in their preparatory studies for the chorus used in 
religious worship, and in other sacred ceremonies. His ambition, how- 
ever, soon led him to aspire to a more elevated position and a more ex- 
tended celebrity than could be attained in his native place ; and he there- 
fore removed to Athens, and there established himself in his profession. 

Tyrtseus had resided in Athens but a comparatively short time before 
the freedom of the city was conferred upon him, together with all the 
privileges and immunities of citizenship. To this the honorableness of 
his profession, and the respect in which it was held, greatly contrib- 
uted ; for instructors were always regarded by the Athenians as public 
benefactors. As an Athenian citizen, Tyrtseus frequently bore arms in 
defence of his country ; and it is probable that he had attained some con- 
siderable distinction as a soldier, before the following incident, and to 
which we have already alluded, occurred :— 

The Spartans, in a war with the Messenians, a neighboring State, 
though at first successful, were at length reduced to so great extremity 
as to be constrained to apply to the Delphic oracle, in order to ascertain 
the cause of their frequent defeats, or to inquire in what manner they 
might become successful. The oracle replied that the Messenians would 
continue to triumph till the Spartans obtained an Athenian general to 
lead their armies. The Dorian pride of Sparta was deeply wounded by 
a response from the oracle so humiliating to their ancient glory, and at 
the same time so complimentary to the Hellenic race of Athens. There 



?8 TYRT^EUS. [Lect. HI 

-was, however, no alternative, and to Athens they accordingly sent, in 
accordance with the response of the oracle, for a commander. The 
Athenians, in compliance with their request, sent them, it is said in deri- 
sion, but we know not why, the poet Tyrtaeus, as the leader of their 
forces. Tyrteeus found the Spartan troops entirely dispirited ; but by 
the animated strains of his martial poetry, he soon succeeded in rousing 
their ancient heroic enthusiasm, and inspiring them with the highest de- 
gree of military ardor : the poem which follows is represented to have 
mainly contributed to the production of this effect. But whatever may 
have been the cause, Tyrtaeus had been at the head of the Spartan forces 
only a short time before they became everywhere victorious, and in the 
event of the contest, the Messenians were reduced to absolute submis- 
sion, and to unconditional servitude. Of the poem to which we here 
allude, and which is one of the finest War Songs ever written, the fol- 
lowing is a very faithful translation : — 



WAR ELEGY. 

Not on the lips, nor yet in memory's traee 
Should that man live, though rapid in the race, 
And firm in wrestling : though Cyclopean might 
Be his, and fleetness like a -whirlwind's flight : 
Though than Titkonus lovelier to behold; 
Like Cynaras, or Midas, graced with gold: 
Than Pelop's realm more kingly his domain; 
More sweet his language than Adrastus' strain ; 
ZSTot though he boast all else of mortal praise, 
Yet want the glory of the warrior's bays. 
He is not brave, who not endures the sight 
Of blood ; nor, man to man, in closest fight, 
Still pants to press the foe: here bravery lies; 
And here of human fame the chiefest prize. 
This noblest badge the youth of honor bears, 
And this the brightest ornament he wears. 
This, as a common good, the state possess, 
\nd a whole people here, their safety bless. 
^irm and unyielding, when the armed man 
Still presses on, and combats in the van ; 
\nd casts the thought of shameful flight away ; 

\nd patient-daring, to the perilous fray 
>esents his life and soul; and, with his eye, 

.nd voice, exhorts his fellow-men to die, 
Here is the warrior found ; this, this is bravery. 
"Te breaks the bristling phalanx from afar : 
dis foresight rules the floating wave of war; 
7 allen in the foremost ranks, he leaves a name, 

iis father's glory, and his country's fame. 
All on the front he bears full many a wound 
That rived his breast-plate and his buckler's round 



660A.C] ARCHILOCHUS. 79 

Old men and youths let fall the sorrowing tear, 
And a whole people mourns around his bier. 
Fame, decks his tomb, and shall his children grace, 
And children's children, to their latest race. 
For ne'er his name, his generous glory, dies : 
Though tomb'd in earth, he shall immortal rise ; 
"Who dared, persisting, in the field remain, 
And act his deeds, till number'd with the slain ? 
"While charging thousands rush'd, resisting stood, 
And for his sons and country, pour'd his blood. 
But if, escaping the long sleep of death, 
He wins the splendid battle's glorious wreath ; 
Him, with fond gaze, gray sires and youths behold, 
And life is pleasant, till his days are old. 
Conspicuous midst the citizens he wears 
The silver glory of his snowy hairs. 
None 'gainst his peace conspire with shameless hate, 
None seek to wrong the saviour of the State : 
The younger, and his equals, reverent rise ; 
His elders quit their seats, with honoring eyes; 
Then to this height of generous deeds aspire ; 
And let the soul of war thy patriot bosom fire. 

Archilochus, the Grecian poet who follows Tyrtaeus, was born in the 
island of Paros, 660 A.C. He belonged to one of the most ancient 
and honorable families of that island, and to this circumstance much of 
his early reputation and influence are to be attributed. The Parians 
being a people of great enterprise and activity, resolved to form a distant 
settlement in the island of Thasos, on the coast of Thrace. To secure 
the protection of the gods of their country in this enterprise, they com- 
missioned Telesicles, the father of Archilochus, to the temple of Apollo, 
in order to insure the protection and patronage of that divinity. The 
favor of the god was, without difficulty, obtained, and the expedition 
being accordingly undertaken, it proved entirely successful. The set- 
tlement having been formed, it became necessary there to institute the 
Eleusinian mysteries ; and for this purpose, Tellis, the grandfather of 
Archilochus was deputed to accompany the priestess of Ceres thither. 

Archilochus was, in the meantime, prosecuting his studies in his native 
island, and had scarcely begun to distinguish himself as a poet before aid 
from the parent country was required by their distant colony — the colony 
having attempted to form a settlement on the adjacent coast of Thrace. 
To this project the Thracians objected, and they, therefore, determined 
to expel the invaders by force. Aid being consequently sent from Paros 
to their assistance, Archilochus himself accompanied the expedition ; but 
in the first onset of the enemy he evinced that want of personal courage 
which, by the ancient Greeks, was always regarded not only as dishonor- 
able, but in the highest degree, disgraceful. He, in fact, fled from the 
field of battle ; and that his shield might not impede his flight, he cast it 



80 ARCHILOCHUS. [Lect. III. 

from him, and left it a trophy to the pursuing enemy. The witty poet 
did not, however, intend that his enemies should be permitted to use this 
incident to his disadvantage, and therefore, in order to anticipate the 
ridicule they might heap upon him, he made a matter of amusement of 
the event himself, and anticipated an expression of public opinion by the 
composition and publication of the following verses : 

Rejoice, some Saian, who my shield may find, 
"Which in some hedge, unhurt, I left behind. 
Farewell my shield; now I myself am free, 
I'll buy another, full as good as thee. 

Before Archilochus set out on the expedition to Thasos, he had formed 
a prospective matrimonial alliance with Neobule, the daughter of Ly- 
cambes, one of the principal citizens of Paros. His disgraceful conduct, 
however, on the field of battle in Thrace had already become known at 
Paros ; in consequence of which, Lycambes not only refused to permit 
him to renew his suit to his daughter, but Neobule herself declined to 
hold any farther intercourse with him. The dignity of the family of 
Archilochus, and the personal feelings of the poet himself, were so out- 
raged by this event, that he immediately turned the bitter invective of 
his poetic satire against Lycambes and every member of his family. 
These satires were written in Iambic verse — a measure invented by the 
author at this time, and one peculiarly adapted to satirical purposes. At 
first the satiric strains of Archilochus were treated lightly both by 
Lycambes and his friends ; but the poet reiterated his attacks so con- 
stantly, and with such increased severity on every successive occasion, 
that Lycambes was finally driven to absolute despair — and in order to 
cover his mortification, and to remove himself from the taunts of the 
friends of Archilochus, he violently terminated his existence by suicide ; 
and his daughter soon after followed his example. 

For some time after this melancholy event occurred, Archilochus con- 
tinued at Paros, triumphing in his victory, and caressed by his friends, 
who had now become the settled opponents of the party of Lycambes ; 
but eventually the partisans of Lycambes gained the ascendancy, and by 
a public decree Archilochus was banished from his ancestral home. 
Immediately after his banishment he repaired to Thasos ; but finding no 
more favor there than he had found at Paros, he resolved to seek shelter, 
protection, and even patronage, among the continental States of Greece. 
Intelligence of his infamous cowardice had, however, by this time, spread 
throughout the whole country ; and accordingly, wherever he made his 
appearance, he was not only shunned, but even treated with contumely 
and insult. 

Wandering thus for many years from State to State, an actual outcast 
in the midst of his countrymen, he finally reached the city of Elis just at 
the time the Olympic games were to be celebrated in that city ; and his 



660A.C] ACHILOCHUS. 81 

pitiable condition immediately excited the compassion of the multitude 
assembled, though his disgrace, with all its offensiveness, still attached 
closely to him. He had the good fortune, however, so far to ingratiate 
himself with the judges who presided at the games, as to obtain their 
permission to recite an ode which he had composed in honor of Hercules, 
There were many other poets assembled at Elis for the purpose of com- 
peting for the poetic prize, and the judges therefore considered that it 
would be no more than an act of justice to Archilochus to allow him, 
banished and disgraced though he was, to enter the list of competitors, 
He was preceded by many poets of eminence, and their productions, 
being of a high order of merit, received the just applause and the warm 
encomiums of the judges before whom they were produced ; but when 
Archilochus appeared, bearing with him his harp, and commenced to 
strike its strings and to chant forth his heavenly numbers, in honor of 
the great hero in whose praise they were written, the whole assembly was 
at once enchanted, and, without a moment's hesitation, decreed to him 
the highest poetic honor, and the first prize. 

The occasion upon which this great triumph was obtained was so 
public, and the circumstances were so imposing, that the fame of the 
event spread even more rapidly than had the previous intelligence of 
Archilochus' disgrace ; and the people of Paros hearing of the signal 
victory which their banished poet had gained, hastened to repair the 
injury which they had inflicted upon him, by publicly recalling him from 
banishment. But his heart's anguish, trial, penury, and even want 
itself, had preyed so long upon the sensitive feelings of the great poet, 
that his strength was exhausted, his vital energies were prostrated ; and 
he, therefore, when the intelligence of his recall from banishment reached 
him at Elis, had only sufficient power left to enable him to find his way 
to his home just in time to mingle his ashes with those of his ancestors. 
Thus, by a fatality frequently attending men of genius, Archilochus 
passed a life of misery, and acquired honor only after his death. Re- 
proach, ignominy, contempt, poverty, and persecution, were the ordinary 
companions of his person ; while admiration, glory, respect, splendor, 
and even magnificence, were the melancholy attendants of his shade. 

The genius of Archilochus was of a very high order of excellence. He 
was the inventor, as we have already observed, of satirical poetry, and 
the measure which he originated at the time of this invention, has ever 
since been regarded the most effective, as well as the most elegant vehicle 
for poetic communication that the Greek language possessed. To the 
invention of this order of versification the Roman poet Horace alludes in 
the following lines : — 

Archilochus, with fierce resentment warmed, 
Was with his own severe Iambics armed. 
6 



82 ACHILOCHUS. [Lect. Ill 

We are not, however, to infer that because the principal poems of Ar- 
chilochus were satirical, that he confined himself exclusively to that order 
of poetry ; for we have a number of fragments evidently taken from 
those philosophical poems which he from time to time produced, and to 
which his contemporaries so frequently allude, that are of the highest 
order of merit. Of these fragments the following are fair samples : — 



AN EXHORTATION TO FORTITUDE UNDER CALAMITY. 

Groans rise on griefs, oh Pericles ! nor they 

Who feed the woe, in wine or feast are grey. 

The billow of the many roaring deep 

Has borne these pleasures in its whelming sweep. 

Our grief-swoll'n hearts, now draw their breath in pain; 

Yet blessings, oh my friend ! shall smile again. 

The gods reserve for seeming-cureless woe 

A balm, and antidotes on grief bestow. 

In turn the cure and suffering take their round, 

And we now groaning feel the bleeding wound: 

Now other breasts the shifting tortures know ; 

Endure; nor droop thus womanish in woe. 



ON AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN. 

Naught, now, can pass belief; in Nature's ways 
No strange anomaly our wonder raise. 
Th' Olympian Father hangs a noon-day night 
O'er the sun's disk, and veils its glittering light. 
Fear falls on man. Hence miracles before 
Incredible, are counted strange no more. 
Stand not amazed if beasts exchange the wood 
"With dolphins ; and exist amidst the flood ; 
These the firm land forsake for sounding waves, 
And those find pleasure in the mountain caves. 



EQUANIMITY. 

Spirit, thou Spirit, like a troubled sea, 
Ruffled with deep and hard calamity, 
Sustain the shock : a daring heart oppose : 
«Stand firm, amidst the charging spears of foes: 
If conquering, vaunt not in vain-glorious show ; 
If conquer'd, stoop not, prostrated in woe: 
Moderate, in joy, rejoice ; in sorrow, mourn : 
Muse on man's lot: be thine discreetly borne. 

The same thing was often observed by the ancients of the poems of 
Archilochus, that was said of the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero — 
that the longest of them were the best. His ' Hymn to Hercules,' of 



660A.C. ARCHILOCHUS. 83 

winch we have already spoken, was repeated on three distinct and sepa- 
rate occasions at the Olympic G-ames — an honor which no other Grecian 
poet ever enjoyed, with, perhaps, the single exception of Pindar. 

The following brief framents will close our notice of this eminent 
but unfortunate poet. 

TWO MILITARY PORTRAITS. 

Boast me not your valiant captain, 

Strutting fierce with measur'd stride, 
GloryiDg in his well-trimm'd beard, and 

"Wavy ringlets' clustered pride. 
Mine be he that's short of stature, 

Firm of foot, with curved knee ; 
Heart of oak in limb and feature, 

And of courage bold and free. 

THE STORM. 

Behold my Glaucus, how the deep 
Heaves, while the sweeping billows howl, 

And round the promontory-steep 
The big black clouds portentous scowl, 

With thunder fraught, and lightning's glare, 

While Terror rules, and wild Despair. 

THE MIND OF MAN. 

The mind of man is such as Jove 

Ordains by his immortal will; 
W T ho moulds it, in the courts above, 

His heavenly purpose to fulfil. 

LIFE AND DEATH. 

Jove sits in highest heaven, and opes the springs, 
To man, of monstrous and forbidden things. 
Death seals the fountains of reward and fame : 
Man dies, and leaves no guardian of his name. 
Applause awaits us only while we live, 
While we can honor take, and honor give : 
Yet were it base for man of woman born, 
To mock the naked ghost with jests or scorn. 

The contemporaries of Archilochus were Terpander, Alcman, and 
Stesichorus ; and these were followed in the next generation by Alcaeus, 
a poet of far greater celebrity than either of his immediate predecessors. 

Terpander was the originator of the gay and festive kinds of lyric 



84 ALCMAN.— STESICHORUS. [Lkot. IIL 

composition. He was a native of the isle of Lesbos, and was born about 
665 A.C. He obtained the musical prize in the Carnean festival at 
Sparta, and soon after gained five successive prizes at Delphi, as appeared 
by a correct register of the conquerors in the Pythian games, preserved 
in the time of Plutarch. These triumphs procured for him the respect 
of his contemporaries ; but he has been honored by posterity chiefly for 
his improvement of the lyre, and for the new varieties of measure which 
he introduced into Grecian poetry. Unfortunately his poetry has all 
perished. 

Alcman was a native of Sardis, in Asia Minor, and was born about 
650 A.C. Of his life nothing but a few isolated facts has been preserved. 
His Parthenia, composed in honor and praise of woman, and sung by 
choruses of virgins, were so popular among the Spartans as to procure 
for their author the name of Sweet. He was a man of very amorous 
nature, was the earliest writer of love verses, and is thought to have 
been the first to introduce the practice of singing them in public. So 
brief fragments only of his poetry have been preserved, that it is very 
difficult to form any correct judgment of his merits as a writer. The 
lines addressed to Megalostrata, one of his mistresses, and the fragment 
which follows, comprise the chief of his remains. 

TO MEGALOSTRATA 

Again sweet Love, by Venus led, 

Hath all my soul possessed ; 
Again delicious rapture shed 

In torrents o'er my breast. 
Now Megalostrata, the fair, — 

Of all the virgin train 
Most blessed — with her yellow hair — 

Hath brought me to the Muse's fane. 



A FRAGMENT. 

The mountain summits sleep, glens, cliffs, and caves, 
Are silent ; — all the black earth's reptile brood, 
The bees, the wild beasts of the mountain wood; 

Its depths beneath the darkred ocean's waves 

In monsters rest ; whilst wrapt, in bower and spray, 
Each bird is hush'd, that stretch'd its pinions to the day. 

Stesichorus was a native of the island of Sicily, and was born at Himera 
about 645 A.C. His name was originally Tysias, but was afterwards 
changed into Stesichorus, because he was the first who taught the Chorus 
to dance to the lyre. Hence, from their origin, the Strophe, Antistrophe, 
and Epode of the Chorus became associated throughout Greece with his 



645A.C.] STESICHORUS. 85 

name. Being a man of high rank, and eminent for his wisdom, he ex- 
erted a great influence over his fellow-citizens, and chiefly contributed to 
prevent them from entering into an alliance with the tyrant Phalaris. 
He died at an advanced age, at Catana, in his native island ; and the 
inhabitants of that city were so sensible of the honor conferred upon 
them by the possession of his remains, that they would not permit the 
Himerians, under any circumstances, to remove them to the poet's native 
place. 

Stesichorus has been the subject of the most extravagant encomiums 
by ancient critics. Majesty and grandeur were, in their estimation, the 
prevailing characteristics of his style. Horace speaks of the Graves 
Camcence ; Alexander, in Dion Chrysostom, places him among the poets, 
whom a prince ought to read ; and Synesias puts him and Homer to- 
gether, as the noble celebraters of the heroic race. Quintilian, too, one 
of the ablest critics of antiquity, has also left the following judgment of 
this poet's works : " The force of Stesichorus's wit appears from the 
subjects he has treated of; while he sings the greatest wars and the 
greatest commanders, and sustains with his lyre all the might and 
grandeur of an epic poem. For he makes his heroes speak and act 
agreeably to their character; and had he but observed moderation, he 
would have appeared the fairest rival of Homer. But he is too exuber- 
ant, and does not know how to contain himself, — which, though really a 
fault, yet is one of those faults which arise from an abundance and ex- 
cess of genius." 

The principal poems of Stersichorus, were the Destruction of Troy, 
the Orestea, the Rhadice, the Scytta, and the Geryoneis. Of all these 
works, however, nothing but a few scattered fragments, such as the fol- 
lowing, havo been preserved from oblivion : — 



THE SACRIFICE OF TYJNT>ARUS. 

For -whereas Tyndarus, 

Midst all his rites to all the gods above, 

Alone forgot 
That giver of sweet gifts, the queen of Love, — 
Wroth with the daughters for the father's sake, 

The goddess caused them straight, 
Thrice, thrice their nuptial bonds to break, 
And each desert her mate. 



VOYAGE OF THE SUN". 

But now the sun, great Hyperion's child, 
Embarked again upon his golden chalice, 

And westward steer'd, where, far o'er ocean wild, 
Sleeps the dim night, in solitary valleys; 



ALCEUS. [Lect.III. 



"Where dwell his mother and his consort mild, 

And infant sons, in his sequestered palace, 
"Whilst onward, through the laurel-shaded grove, 
Moved, with firm step, the hero son of Jove. 



THE PROCESSION. 

Before the regal chariot, as it passed, 
"Were bright Cydonian apples scattered round, 

And myrtle leaves, in showers of fragrance cast, 
And many a wreath was there with roses bound, 

And many a coronal, wherein were set, 

Like gems, rich rows of purple violet. 



A FRAGMENT. ' 

Vain it is for those to weep 
"Who repose in death's last sleep. 
With man's life ends all the story 
Of his wisdom, wit, and glory. 

Alcaeus was a native of Mitylene, in the island of Lesbos, and was born 
620 A.C. His family was influential and powerful, and he himself early 
joined Pittacus and others, to relieve his native city of a tyranny under 
which it had long groaned. Pittacus afterwards apostatised from the 
heroic party, and in the event of the struggle that followed, placed him- 
self at the head of the government. For this act of treachery and usurpa- 
tion he was bitterly satirized by Alcaeus, who was, in consequence of his 
opposition to the new tyrant, driven into exile. Endeavoring to return 
by force of arms, but being unsuccessful, he fell into the hands of his 
former friend, but now exasperated conqueror, who, however, instead of 
punishing him, granted him his liberty, observing that forgiveness was 
sweeter than revenge. Pittacus designed, by this act of clemency, to win 
Alcaeus over to his interest ; but the inveterate poet still continued to rail 
against the tyrant, and finally all favor was withdrawn from him. To 
this circumstance Ovid alludes in the following lines : — 

Or may thy satire too severe be found, 

And thrice, like poor Alcseus muse, be crown'd 

"With vengeance from the hand it dares to wound. 

In an engagement with the Athenians, in which that valiant State tri- 
umphed over the Lesbians, Alcseus was present ; and as soon as he per- 
ceived that the contest would prove adverse to his own party, he threw 
away his arms, and saved himself by flight. It was, however, some con- 
solation to him in his disgrace, that the conqueror ordered his arms to be 
hung up in the temple of Minerva, at Sigaeum. 



620A.C] ALCAEUS. 87 

Alcaeus was the inventor of the metre which bears his name, and his 
muse embraced every variety of subject — the praises of Bacchus and 
Venus, invectives against tyrants, and lamentations on the evils of exile 
and war. His poetical abilities must have been of a very high order, for 
all antiquity is full of his praises ; but unfortunately a few fragments only 
of his poetry remain. His Writings were chiefly in the lyric strain, but 
his muse was capable of treating the sublimest subjects with suitable dig- 
nity. Hence Horace, his most successful imitator, says : — 

Alcaeus strikes tlie golden strings, 
And seas, and war, and exile sings ; 
Thus, while they strike the various lyre, 
The ghosts the sacred sounds admire : 
But when Alcaeus lifts the strain 
To deeds of -war and tyrants slain, 
In thicker crowds the shadowy throng 
Drink deeper down the martial song. 

The following songs and fragments, embrace everything of value that 
time has spared, of this ancient and venerated bard : 

A CONVIVIAL SONG. 

Why wait we for the torches' lights? 
Now let us drink, while day invites. 
In mighty flagons hither bring 

The deep-red blood of many a vine, 
That we may largely quaff, and sing 

The praises of the God of wine. 

The son of Jove and Semele, 
Who gave the jocund grape to be 
A sweet oblivion to our woes. 

Fill, fill the goblet — one and two: 
Let every brimmer, as it' flows, 

In sportive chase, the last pursue. 

A CONVIVIAL SONG. 

Jove descends in sleet and snow, 

Howls the vexed and angry deep ; 
Every stream forgets to flow, 

Bound in winter's icy sleep. 
Ocean wave and forest hoar. 
To the blast responsive roar. 

Drive the tempest from your door, 

Blaze on blaze, your hearthstone piling, 
' And unmeasured goblets pour, 

Brimful high with nectar smiling. 

Then beneath your poet's head 

Be & downy pillow spread. 



88 ALC^EUS. [Lect. ILL 



THE STORM. 

Now here, now there, the 'wild -waves sweep, 
■Whilst we, betwixt them, o'er the deep. 

In shatter'd tempest-beaten bark, 
"With laboring ropes are onward driven, 

The billows dashing o'er our dark, 
Upheaved deck — in tatters riven 

Our sails — whose yawning rents between 

The raging sea and sky are seen. 
****** 
Loose from their hold our anchors burst, 

And then the third, the fatal wave 
Comes rolling onward like the first, 

And doubles all our toil to save. 



THE POOR FISHERMAN. 

The fisher Diotimus had, at sea 

And shore, the same abode of poverty — 

His trusty boat ; — and when his days were spent, 

Therein self-rowed to ruthless Dis he went ; 

For that, which did through life his woes beguile, 

Supplied the old man with a funeral pile. 



POVERTY. 

The worst of ills, and hardest to endure, 

Past hope, past cure, 
Is Penury, who, with her sister-mate 
Disorder, soon brings down the loftiest state, 

And makes it desolate. 
This truth the sage of Sparta told, 

Aristodemus old, — 
'Wealth makes the man.' On him that's poor, 
Proud worth looks down, and honor shuts the door. 



THE SPOILS OF WAR. 

Glitters with brass my mansion wide ; 
The roof is deck'd on every side, 

In martial pride, 
With helmets rang'd in order bright, 
And plumes of horse-hair nodding white, 

A gallant sight — 
Fit ornament for warrior's brow — 
And round the walls in goodly row, 

Refulgent glow 



620A.C] M SOP.— SOLON. 89 

Stout greaves of brass, like burnish'd gold, 
And corslets there in many a fold 

Of linen roll'd : 
And shields that in the battle fray, 
The routed losers of the day 

Have east away. 
Eubcean falchions too are seen, 
"With rich-embroidered belts between 

Of dazzling sheen : 
And gaudy surcoats piled around, 
The spoils of chiefs in war renowned, 

May there be found. 
These, and all else that here you see, 
Are fruits of glorious victory, 

Achieved by me. 



THE CONSTITUTION" OF A STATE. 

What constitutes a State ? 
Not high-raised battlement, or labored mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate : 
Not cities fair, with spires and turrets crown'd: 

No: — Men, high-minded men — 
"With powers as far above dull brutes endued 

In forest, brake, or den, 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude — 

Men, who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain; 

Prevent the long-aimed blow, 
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain. 

With the following brief passages, the first from iEsop, the celebrated 
Fabulist, and the others from Solon, the distinguished Athenian Law- 
giver, we shall close our present remarks ; but as these eminent writers 
belong to another department of literature, we shall not here dwell upon 
the incidents of their lives. Of Solon's poetical genius Plato, the great 
philosopher, was of opinion that, had he seriously applied himself to 
poetry, neither Hesiod, nor Homer, nor any other poet, would have been 
more celebrated. 



DEATH THE SOVEREIGN REMEDY. 

AN ELEGIAC. 

Who, but for death, could find repose 
From life, and life's unnumbered woes ? 
From ills that mock our art to cure, 
As hard to fly as to endure? 
Whate'er is sweet without alloy, 
And sheds a more exalted joy, 



90 ^ESOP.— SOLON. [Lect.HL 

Yon glorious orb that gilds the day, 
Or placid moon, thy silver ray, 
Earth, sea, whate'er we gaze upon, 
Is thine, Nature, thine alone; 
But gifts, which to ourselves we owe, 
What are they all, but fear and woe ? 
Chance-pleasure, hardly worth possessing, 
Ten curses for a single blessing. 



JUSTICE. 

Short are the triumphs to injustice given, — 

Jove sees the end of all ; like vapors driven 

By early Spring's impetuous blast, that sweeps 

Along the billowy surface of the deeps, 

Or passing o'er the fields of tender green, 

Lays in sad ruin all the lovely scene, 

Till it reveals the clear celestial blue, 

And gives the palace of the gods to view; 

Then bursts the sun's full radiance from the skies, 

Where not a cloud can form or vapor rise. 

Such is Jove's vengeance: not like human ire, 

Blown in an instant to a scorching fire, 
But slow and certain; though it long may lie, 
Wrapt in the vast concealment of the sky; 
Yet never does the dread Avenger sleep, 
And though the sire escape the son shall weep. 



A FRAGMENT. 

The man who boasts of golden stores, 
Of grain, that loads his groaning floors, 
Of fields with freshening herbage green, 
Where bounding steeds and herds are seen, 
I call not happier than the swain, 
Whose limbs are sound, whose food is plain, 
Whose joys a blooming wife endears, 
Whose hours a smiling offspring cheers. 



REMEMBRANCE AFTER DEATH. 

Let not a death, unwept, unhonor'd, be 
The melancholy fate allotted me ! 
But those who loved me living, when I die, 
Still fondly keep some cherish'd memory. 



Xttinttfyt ^nurifr. 



SAPPHO.— ERINJ^A— MIMNERMUS.— IBYCUS.— THEOGNIS, 
ANACREON. 



In the closing part of the last lecture our attention was drawn to the 
immediate predecessors of Sappho, the celebrated poetess of Mitylene ; 
and of her extraordinary genius Coleridge observes that, l the very shreds 
remaining of her works, seem enough to prove her the greatest of lyric 
poets after Pindar.' As compared with Alcseus, Stesichorus, and the 
rest, her pre-eminence in every lyric quality, is incontestable; her music, 
her passion, her imagery, her truth, are all transcendent ; and, after read-, 
ing what exists of her, we can never think of the other poets who pre- 
ceded, or were coeval with her, without applying to them her own beauti- 
ful stanza : — 

The stars that round the beauteous moon 

Attendant wait, cast into shade 
Their ineffectual lustres, soon 

As she in full-orbed majesty array'd, 
Her silver radiance showers 
Upon this world of ours. 

These Grecian lyrists were all, with the exception of Alcman of Sardis, 
and Stesichorus of Hemira, born on the Asiatic coast, or in the islands 
of the iEgean sea. ' These enchanting climates,' says Dr. Gillies, the 
elegant Grecian historian, ' were the best adapted to inspire the raptures 
peculiar to the ode, as well as to excite that voluptuous gayety charac- 
teristic of the Grecian song.' Amidst the romantic scenes of Ionia, was 
felt with uncommon sensibility, the force of that pleasing, painful pas- 
sion, which, uniting grief, joy, and enthusiasm, contains the fruitful seeds 
of whatever is most perfect in music and poetry. Here Sappho breathed 
the amorous. flames by which she herself was eventually consumed. 

Sappho, incomparably the most eminent poetess of antiquity, and per- 
haps the most gifted female genius of any age or country, was born at 



92 SAPPHO. [Lect.IV. 

JVlitylene, in the island of Lesbos, 610 A.C. Of her parentage little is 
farther known, than that her father's name was Scamandronomus, and 
her mother's, Cleis ; but of the strength of her intellect, the keenness 
of her wit, and the splendor of her genius, she very early gave the most 
unmistakable evidence. So gifted and so attractive, she soon drew about 
her many suitors, among whom was the poet Alcgeus, already noticed. 
Alcasus seems to have been doubtful of the success of his suit, and though 
he declared that his passion for the fair poetess had almost consumed 
him, yet he hesitated to place himself, by any open declaration, at the 
mercy of her sarcastic wit. A favorable opportunity, however, according 
to Aristotle, at length presented itself, and he ventured to intimate his 
desire in the following couplet : — 

Fain would I speak, but must, through shame, conceal 
The thought my eager tongue would soon reveal. 

To this address Sappho immediately replied — 

"Were your request, bard ! on honor built, 
Your cheeks would not have worn those marks of guilt : 
But in prompt words the ready thoughts had flown, 
And your heart's honest meaning quickly shown. 

This reply so disconcerted Alcasus, that he immediately abandoned 
his suit ; but Sappho was soon after married to Cercolas, a wealthy in- 
habitant of the neighboring island of Andros. Thither she accordingly 
removed ; but she had soon after the misfortune to lose her husband by 
death ; and thus left in early widowhood, she at once returned to her na- 
tive Lesbos with the intention of resuming her residence amid the scenes 
and associations of her early life. She found, however, on her return to 
Lesbos, that the recent changes through which she had passed had cloth- 
ed every source of early association with attributes so gloomy, that a 
residence at Mitylene had no longer any attractions for her ; and as 
Athens had just fallen under the rule of Pisistratus, the splendid usurper 
of its government, who, in order to reconcile the people to his a*dminis- 
tration, held out every encouragement to genius and learning, she re- 
solved to remove thither, and there devote her time to literary pursuits, to 
the refined, and even the voluptuous enjoyments of that court. Maturity 
had now perfected her early beauty, and strengthened the ardor of her 
affections ; she had not, therefore, long resided at Athens, before she be- 
came devotedly attached to Phaon, one of the youthful attendants upon 
the Athenian court. He, however, either trifled with her affections, or did 
not reciprocate her passion ; and, in order to be relieved from her impor- 
tunity, left Athens, and retired to the island of Sicily. Thither Sappho 
immediately followed him, and on landing upon that island, she breathed 
forth that magnificent ode, in the form of a prayer to Venus, which 
Longinus carefully preserved, and pronounced one of the finest emana- 



610A.C.] SAPPHO. 93 

tions of the Grecian lyric muse. Of this splendid ode we venture to offer 
the following translation, which, though containing little of the spirit 
and fire of the original, is, to the letter, faithful. 



ODE TO VENUS. 

Venus ! immortal ! child of Jove ! 
Who sitt'st on painted throne above ; 
Weaver of wiles ! oh, let not Love 

Inflict this torturing flame! 

But haste; if, once, my passion's cry 
Drew thee to listen, hasten nigh ; 
From golden palaces on high 

Thy harness'd chariot came. 

O'er shadowy earth, before my sight, 
Thy dainty sparrows wheel'd their flight; 
Their balanced wings, in ether's light, 

Were quivering too and fro. 

The birds flew back : thou blessed queen ! 
Didst smile with heavenly brow serene ; 
And ask, what grief the cause had been, 
That summon'd thee below ? 

What most I wished, with doating mind: 
Whom most seductive, I would bind 
In amorous nets ; and, ' Who, unkind, 

My Sappho, wrongs thee now V 

* The fugitive shall turn pursuer ; 

The vainly woo'd shall prove the wooer : 

The cold shall kneel to his undoer, 

Though she disdain his vow.' 

Come then, now ! come once again ! 
Ease my bosom of its pain ! 
Let me all my wish obtain ! 

Fight my battles thou ! 

Venus, however, proved unpropitious to Sappho's importunate prayer, 
and Phaon, cold, cruel, and relentless ; and, in a fit of desperation, the 
phrenzied poetess hastened to Mount Leucas, a promontory on the coast 
of Sicily, and thence, according to the tradition, precipitated herself into 
the sea. 

Perhaps no other author of either ancient or modern times, ever en- 
joyed, during life, so great a reputation as was enjoyed by Sappho, or was 
so highly honored after death. The Mityleneans, her countrymen, paid 
sovereign honors to her name, bestowed upon her the appellation of the 
Tenth Muse, and stamped their money with her image ; and even the 



94 SAPPHO. [Lect. IV. 

distant Romans, centuries afterwards, out of respect to her memory, 
erected and inscribed to her name, a magnificent porphyry statue. In 
the sweetness of her numbers, the fervor of her language, the splendor 
of her imagery, and the condensed power of her expression, she was, per- 
haps, by none of her countrymen ever excelled ; and, perhaps, Pindar 
may be regarded as her only equal. Her verses, it is true, were chiefly 
devoted to the praises of the tender passion ; but she did not regard it 
as a voluptuous, but as an abstract, ethereal, elevated, and god-like prin- 
ciple. In reality, most of the detractions from Sappho's merit are trace- 
able to the envy of those Roman poets who afterwards in vain attempted, 
in the lyric strain, to equal her fire and sublimity ; and for this, Ovid is, 
perhaps, more deeply censurable than any other. 

Those critics, therefore, who regard Sappho's fragments as mere love 
songs, greatly degrade her genius. Her strain was of a more elevated 
and commanding kind — simple, vehement, rich in images, and sparkling 
in words — her poetry was the poetry of impulse. In all succeeding poets 
who have written on love, we can trace the wit of sentiment, and the 
finished delicacy of art. In Sappho we have a total unconsciousness of 
effort ; but such is the enthusiasm of her sensations, that she has infused 
even sublimity into the softness of the tender passion. Hence Longinus, 
perhaps the most discerning critic of antiquity, has instanced her bold 
selection and association of circumstances, in the emotion of violent love, 
as forming the true sentimental sublime. 

Resides the above Ode to Venus, we shall present another of the com- 
plete poems of this inimitable writer, together with a few poetic frag- 
ments; though Phillips, one of the contemporaries of Addison, has 
clothed it in a sweet poetic dress, yet we venture to present the following 
translation by Elton, as better suited to our purpose. The poem itself 
will at once be recognized, as it has long been before the public in the 
translation which we have already mentioned : 

TO A GIRL BELOVED. 

That man is like a god to me 
"Who, sitting face to face with thee, 
Shall hear thee sweetly speak, and see 

Thy laughter's gentle blandishing. 

'Tis this astounds my trembling heart : 
I see thee, lovely as thou art : 
My fluttering words, in murmurs start, 
My broken tongue is faltering. 

My flushing skin the fire betrays 
That through my blood electric strays : 
My eyes seem darkening as I gaze, 
My ringing ears re-echoing. 



610 AC.] SAPPHO. 95 

Cold from my forehead glides the dew: 
A shuddering tremor thrills me through: 
My cheek a green and yellow hue: 

All gasping, dying, languishing, 



AN ILLITERATE WOMAN. 

Unknown, unheeded, shalt thou die, 
And no memorial shall proclaim, 

That once, beneath the upper sky, 
Thou hadst a being and a name. 

For never to the Muses' bowers 

Didst thou, with glowing heart repair, 

Nor ever intertwine the flowers, 
That Fancy strews unnumbered there. 



Doomed o'er that dreary realm, alone 
And shunned by gentler shades, to go, 

Nor friend shall soothe nor parent own 
The child of sloth, the Muses' foe. 



FRAGMENTS. 

I. 
The moon hath sunk beneath the sky : 

The Pleiad stars withdraw their light: 
It is the darkling noon of night : 

The hour, the hour hath glided by, 
And yet alone, alone I lie. 

II. 
Mother ! sweet mother ! 'tis in vain ; 

I cannot now the shuttle throw : 
That youth is in my heart and brain: 

And Venus' lingering fires within me glow. 

in. 
Venus, come ! forsake the sky 
For this our banquet's gaiety : 
Come — while the golden beakers gleam, 
The nectar mix in purple stream: 
Fill to these gentle friends the wine: 



IV. 
I have a child — a lovely child — 
In beauty like the golden sun, 
Or like sweet flowers, of earliest bloom, 
And Cleis is her name: — for whom 
I Lydia's treasures, were they mine, 
Would glad resign. 



96 SAPPHO. [Lect. IV 

v. 

Come gentle youth, and in thy flowing locks 

With delicate fingers weave a fragrant crown 

Of aromatic anise ; for the gods 

Delight in flowery wreaths, nor lend an ear 

Propitious to their suit, who supplicate 

"With brows unbound with sweetly-smelling flowers. 

VI. 
Cling to the brave and good — the base disown 
Whose best of fortunes is to live unknown. 

VII. 
Wealth without Virtue is a dangerous guest ; 
Who holds them mingled is supremely blest. 

VIII. 
Beauty, fair flower, upon the surface lies ; 
But Worth with Beauty soon in aspect vies. 

IX. 
When dead, thou shalt in ashes lie, 
Nor live in human memory : 
Nor any page in time to come 
Shall draw thee from thy shroudless tomb. 
For thou didst never pluck the rose 
That on Pieria's mountain grows : 
Dim and unseen thy feet shall tread 
The shadowy mansion of the dead : 
Thee, maiden ! shall no eye survey 
Start from the obscurer ghosts, and wing thy soaring way. 

x. 

Did Jove a queen of flowers decree, 
The rose the queen of flowers should be. 
Of flowers the eye ; of plants the gem ; 
The meadow's blush ; earth's diadem : 
Glory of colors on the gaze 
Lightening in its beauty's blaze : 
It breathes of love : it blooms the guest 
Of Venus' ever fragrant breast : 
In gaudy pomp its petals spread : 
Light foliage trembles rouud its head : 
With vermeil blossoms fresh and fair 
It laughs to the voluptuous air. 



INSCRIPTIONS. 

This dust was Timos : ere her bridal hour 

She lies in Proserpina's gloomy bower: 

Her virgin playmates from their lovely head 

Clipt with sharp steel the locks ; the strewments of the dead. 



600 AC] ERINNA. 9*7 

This oar, and net, and fisher's wicker'd snare 

Themiscus placed above his buried son : 
Memorials of the lot of life he bare ; 

The hard and needy life of Pelagon. 

In connection with the distinguished poetess whom we have just no- 
ticed, we shall here glance at one of her contemporaries, between whom 
and herself the utmost warmth of affection and the closest intimacy ex- 
isted. 



Erinna, the poetess to whom we here allude, was a native of Mitylene, 
the birthplace of Sappho, and was born in that city, 600 A.C. Of her 
life and character so little is known that, perhaps, every incident con- 
nected with her history would long since have passed into oblivion, had 
it not been for her close and intimate connection with Sappho ; and the 
few fragments of her poetry which still remain. Her admiration for her 
distinguished associate naturally led her to adopt her measure ; but far 
from confining herself to that strain, she used all the varied measures 
then known in Greece, and in hexameter verse she is said to have rivalled 
even Homer himself. Indeed, Erinna must be regarded as one of those 
extraordinary geniuses which merely alight upon this earth, and then 
pass away to leave us to mourn that such unusual brightness should so 
soon fade from our view : all the excellence at which she arrived, and all 
the fame that she acquired, was attained before the nineteenth year of 
her age, when her premature death occurred. 

In the fragments of this sweet child of song that remain, particularly 
in her epigrams, there is a degree of simplicity and sweetness that has 
rarely been surpassed. To justify this remark, the following epitaphs are 
quite sufficient. 



EPITAPH 

ON A VIRGIN OP MITYLENE, WHO DIED ON HER WEDDING-DAY. 

The virgin Myrtis' sepulchre am I; 

Creep softly to the pillow'd mound of woe ; 
And whisper to the grave, m earth below, 
' Grave I thou art envious in thy cruelty !' 
To thee, now gazing here, her barb'rous fate, 

These bride's adornments tell; that, with the fire 
Of Hymen's torch, which led her to the gate, 

Her husband burn'd the maid upon her pyre : 
Yes Hymen ! thou didst change the marriage song 
To the shrill wailing of the mourner's throng. 
1 



98 ERINNA. [Lect. IV. 



ON THE SAME. 

Pillars of death ! carved Syrens ! tearful urns ! 

In whose sad keeping my poor dust is laid; 
To him that near my tomb his footsteps turns, 

Stranger or Greek, bid hail ! and say, a maid • 

Rests in her bloom below: her sire the name 

Of Myrtis gave : her birth and lineage high : 
And say, her bosom friend, Erinna came, 

And on this marble grav'd her elegy. 

Beside these epitaphs, the following < Ode to Rome' has usually been 
attributed to this sweet poetess; but Rome could hardly, at that early 
period, have attracted sufficient attention to secure so flattering a notice 
from a distant Grecian author. The Ode itself is, however, of so rare 
merit, that we shall here introduce a translation of it — remarking that 
some scholars, of high pretensions to learning, translate the original title 
of the poem an l Ode to Fortitude,' which entirely obviates the difficulty 
of attributing its authorship to Erinna. 



ODE TO ROME. 

Hail ! oh Rome ! thou child of Mars ! 
Golden-mitred ! wise in wars ! 
High o'er earth thou dwellest still, 
On firm Olympus' hill. 

Rule unbroken fell to thee 
From most ancient destiny; 
That, in thy kingly strength secure, 
Thou ever may'st endure. 

Thy chariot yoke, and guiding rein 
Curb the wide soil, and foamy main; 
The cities of the nations stand, 

Safe underneath thy hand. 

Time, who has earth's destroyer been, 
Who, varying, shifts the human scene, 
Shall never change the prosperous gale 
That swells thy empire's sail. 

For thou alone, dost heroes bear, 

So tall of limb, so strong with spear; 

Thine are the spiky ranks of war 

And men thy harvests are. 

Mimnermus, Ibycus, and Theogni.«, the three poets to be next noticed, 



694A.O.] MIMNERMTTS. 99 

are comparatively so little known that scarcely any definite intelligence 
of them can now be obtained. They were sufficiently eminent, however, 
in their own day, to produce a deep sensation upon the public mind, and 
many fragments of their poetry were, accordingly, preserved by Athenasus 
. and others, with the greatest care. In our remarks, therefore, on Gre- 
cian literature, though they will occupy but a limited space, we cannot 
pass them over in silence. 

Mimnermus was born at Colophon, in Ionia, 594 A.C. He was early 
eminent both as a musician and poet, and, according to Horace and Pro* 
pertius, he was the master of amatory elegy. Their judgment, however, 
must have been based upon specimens of this ancient poet's writings with 
which we are not now familiar, for, in the few remaining fragments of 
his poetry, nothing of this character appears. Indeed, instead of the 
spirit of joy and amorous delight, a morbid melancholy sentiment prevails, 
complaining of the transitory nature of human enjoyments, of the brief- 
ness of youth, and the vanity and wretchedness of life — a youth passed in 
dissolute pleasures, and an old age of senseless and sensual repinings. 
The principal fragments of his poems that have descended to us are the 
following : — 

YOUTH AND AGE. 

"What were life, and where its treasure, 

Golden Venus, wert thou flown? 
Ne'er may I outlive the pleasure 

Given to man by thee alone, — 

Honied gifts and secret love, 

Joys all other joys above. 

Quickly, stripling ! quickly, maiden I 

Snatch life's blossoms ere they fall; 
Age with hate and sorrow laden, 

Soon draws nigh to level all, — 

Makes the man of comeliest mien, 

Like the most ill-favored seen. 

Youth and grace his path declining, 

Gloomy thoughts his bosom tear; 
Seems the sun, in glory shining, 

Now to him no longer fair, — 

Joys no more his soul engage, 

Such the power of dreary age. 



SHORTNESS OF LIFE. 

"We, like the leaves of many-blossom'd spring, 
"When the sun's rays their sudden radiance fling, 
In growing strength, on earth, a little while 
Delighted, see youth's blooming flow'rets smile. 



100 IBYCUS. [Lect.IV 

Not with that wisdom of the gods endued, 
To judge aright of evil and of good. 
Two Fates, dark-scowling, at our side attend, 
Of youth, of life, each points the destin'd end, 
Old age, and death : the fruit of youth remains 
Brief, as the sunshine scatter'd o'er the plains : 
And, when these fleeting hours have fled away, 
To die were better than to breathe the day. 
A load of grief the burthen'd spirit wears; 
Domestic troubles rise ; penurious cares ; 
One with an earnest love of children sighs ; 
The grave is open'd, and he childless dies : 
Another drags in pain his lingering days, 
"While slow disease upon his vitals preys. 
Nor lives there one, whom Jupiter on high ; 
Exempts from years of mix'd calamity. 

Ibycus was a native of Rhegium, in Italy, and was born about 565 
A.C. After having "acquired a high poetic reputation in his native 
place, he removed to the court of Polycrates, in Samos, and there past 
most of the remainder of his life. Suidas, a Greek lexicographer, who 
lived in the beginning of the tenth century, calls him the most love-mad 
of poets ; and the brief fragments of his writings that still remain seem 
fully to justify the character thus given him. He was the author of seven 
books of odes, of which, however, only a few fragments are extant. The 
story of his death, as related by .ZElian, is as follows, and is very re- 
markable. Passing through a solitary place, he was slain by robbers, 
and seeing, in his dying moments, a flock of cranes flying over his head, 
he exclaimed, ' These birds will be my avengers !' And so in reality 
they were ; for one of the murderers happening soon afterwards to see a 
flock of the same birds flying over the market-place of Corinth, inad- 
vertently exclaimed to his comrades, * Behold the avengers of Ibycus !' 
His words were overheard, suspicions arose, inquiry followed, truth cafne 
to light, and the poet's dying prophecy was fulfilled in the execution of 
his murderers. From the fragments of this writer we present the fol- 
lowing ode : 

THE INFLUENCE OF SPRING. 

In Spring, bedewed with river-streams, 
From where, for everlasting gleams 

The garden of th' Hesperides, 
Blossom Cydonian apple-trees ; — 
In Spring the saplings freshly shine, 

Beneath the parent vine, 

In shadow and in breeze; 
But me, Love's mighty power, 
That' sleepeth never an hour, 
From Venus rushing, bumeth with desire, 

As with the lightning fire ; 



549A.C] THEOGNIS. 101 

Black, as the Thracian wind, 

He seizes on my mind, 

With, dry delirious heat 

Inflames my reason's seat, 

And in the centre of my soul, 

Keeps empire for a child, and holds 

Uncheck'd control. , 

Theognis was born at Megara, in Achaia, 549 A.C., and is remarkable 
for being the first poet of eminence that the continent of -Greece pro- 
duced. As was before observed, we know nothing of his parentage or of 
his early life ; but that his learning was eminent is evident from the fact 
that our first intelligence of him finds him occupying the important posi- 
tion of a public instructor in his native place. His popularity in his 
profession soon became such as to excite the enmity of many of his con- 
temporaries, perhaps engaged in the same professional pursuit ; and he 
was, therefore, accused by them of disseminating amongst his scholars 
immoral voluptuousness under the guise of moral precepts. This must, 
however, have been mere scandal ; for the poems of Theognis which still 
remain, so far from containing any such principles as those with which 
they were charged, are distinguished for their elevated and sound moral- 
ity. Indeed, Athenaeus assures us that the verses of Theognis, like those 
of Hesiod, were, in consequence of their correct moral tendency, used for 
centuries throughout Greece, for purposes of public recitation. 

The style of this early poet has little to recommend it. His verses 
consist of successive maxims, which, though pithily expressed, are, with 
only occasional exceptions, dry and unattractive. His three principal 
poems still extant, are c Lines on Friendship,' ' Arguments for Social 
Enjoyment, drawn from the Shortness of Life,' and ' Return to my 
Native Land.' The first of these poems contains a correct and even 
elevated and refined view of the subject of which it treats ; and the argu- 
ment of the second, based upon the brevity of earthly existence, is in 
favor of peace. The third is a sweet, pathetic strain. Besides these 
poems, we possess a number of rather important fragments : 



ON FRIENDSHIP. 

Caress me not with words, while far away 
Thy heart is absent, and thy feelings stray. 
But, if thou love me with a faithful breast, 
Be that pure love with zeal sincere exprest: 
And if thou hate, thy bold aversion show 
With open strife, avowed and known my foe. 
"Who with one tongue, has, yet, a double mind, 
In him, be sure, a slippery friend we find, 
And better as a foe : who, in thy sight, 
Can bid his speech in wanton praise delight ; 



102 THEOGNIS. [Lect.IV. 

But, parted from thee, rails with sland'rous tongue ; 

If, while his lips with honied words are hung, 

Another spirit in his thoughts contend, 

That friend, be sure, is but a hollow friend. 

Let none thy mind, by false inducement, move 

To view the wicked with an eye of love. 

How should a bad man's friendship profit thee? 

Who nor from deep distress will set thee free, 

Nor of his prosperous fortunes yield a share ; 

Thankless are benefits ; an empty care 

Would this, thy kindness to the wicked, be ; 

Go, rather sow the hoary-foaming sea ; 

Scant were thy harvest from the barren main, 

Nor kindness from the bad returns again. 

Unsatisfied they crave; if, once thou fail, 

Their friendship fades like a forgotten tale. 

But, with the good, the fruits of kindness thrive ; 

And, still repaid, in memory survive. 

Let not the wicked thy companion be ; 

From him, as from a dangerous harbor, flee. 

Many the friends of cup and board; but few 

They, whom thy earnest need in succour drew. 

Arduous the task, and on the warning lend 

Thy serious thought, to know the painted friend. 

Of gold's base mixture we may bear the loss, 

And eyes sagacious can detect the dross. 

But, if a friend's most base and worthless heart 

Lurk in his breast, beneath the mask of art, 

Jove varnishes to sight the specious skin, 

Nor keenest glance may pierce the rottenness within. 

In man, nor woman, trust the friend sincere, 

Till thou hast proved them, as we prove the steer*. 

Conjecture aids not, as when seasons smile, 

But empty shows of things allure thee to beguile. 



ARGUMENTS FOR SOCIAL ENJOYMENT 

FROM THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE. 

May Peace, may Plenty bless our happy state, 
And social feast ; for evil war I hate. 
Sky-dwelling Jove ! above our city stand, 
And o'er her safety spread thy guardian hand. 
Smile every God ; and Phoebus, thou, dispense 
The mind of wit, the tongue of eloquence : 
Let harp and pipe in sacred song combine, 
And, with libations of the sprinkled wine 
Appeasing heaven, let converse blithe be ours, 
And goblets, dreadless of the Median powers. 
So is it best to trifle life away, 
Our minds with care unburthen'd, light and gay 



649A.C.] THEOGNIS. 103 

So from dark ills of fate our thoughts depend, 
From age pernicious, and our mortal end. 
In youth I blithsome sport; for soon shall fly 
My spirit ; and my body deep shall lie 
Beneath th' eternal ground ; while years roll on 
Laid motionless, and speechless as a stone. 

Yes — I shall leave the pleasant sun : nor more, 
Though virtuous, look on all that pleas'd before. 
Now, then, my soul ! take pleasure : other eyes 
Shall view the sun, and other men arise : 
While I am lying cold, and stark, and dead, 
"With dusty blackness of the earth o'erspread. 
Still leaps my heart, when breathing on my ear, 
The lovely voice of murm'ring flutes I hear : 
The goblet cheers : the minstrels joyance bring : 
And my own hands touch, glad, the thrilling string: 
There breathes not mortal, on whose head the ground 
Has closed, whom hell's dark chambers compass round, 
That bears the minstrel, listens to the lyre, 
Or feels the rosy gifts of wine inspire. 
My soul ! the thought shall pleasure's counsel speak ; 
Ere the head tremble, ere the knees are weak. 



RETURN TO MY NATIVE LAND. 

Wide have I wandered, far beyond the sea, 
Even to the distant shores of Sicily ; 
To broad Eubcea's plentiful domain, 
With the rich vineyards in its planted plain ; 
And to the sunny wave and winding edge 
Of fair Eurotas with its reedy sedge — 
Where Sparta stands in simple majesty : 
Among her manly rulers there was I, — 
Greeted and welcomed there and everywhere 
With courteous entertainment, kind and fair ; 
Yet still my weary spirit would repine, 
Longing again to view this land of mine ; 
Henceforward, no design, no interest 
Shall ever move me, but the first and best ; 
With Learning's happy gift to celebrate, 
Adorn, and dignify my native State. 
The song, and dance, music and verse agreeing, 
Will occupy my life and fill my being ; 
Pursuits of elegance and learned skill 
(With good repute, and kindness, and good will 
Among the wisest sort,) will pass my time 
Without an enemy, without a crime; 
Harmless and just with every rank of men, 
Both the free native, and the denizen. 



104 THEOGNIS [Lect IV. 



YOUTH AND AGE. 

Ah me! alike o'er youth and age I sigh, 
Impending age, and youth that hastens by; 
Swift as a thought the flowing moments roll, 
Swift as a racer speeds to reach the goal. 
How rich, how happy the contented guest, 
Who leaves the banquet soon, and sinks to rest. 
Damps chill my brow, my pulses flutt'ring beat, 
"Whene'er the vigorous pride of youth I meet 
Pleasant and lovely ; hopeful to the view 
As golden visions, and as transient too: 
But ah ! no terrors stop, nor vows, nor tears 
Life's mournful evening, and the gloom of years. 



POVERTY. 

For noble minds, the worst of miseries, 
Worse than old age, or wearisome disease, 
Is Poverty. From Poverty to flee, 
From some tall precipice into the sea, 
It were a fair escape to leap below ! 
In Poverty, dear Kyrnus, we forego 
Freedom in word and deed, body and mind ; 
Action and thought are fetter'd and confin'd. 
Let me then fly, dear Kyrnus, once again ! 
Wide as the limits of the land and main, 
From these entanglements; with these in view, 
Death is the lighter evil of the two. 



FRIENDS AND FOES. 

May Jove assist me to discharge a debt 

Of kindness to my friends — and grant me yet 

A further boon — revenge upon my foes ! 

With these accomplished, I could gladly close 

My term of life — a fair requital made — 

My friends rewarded, and my wrongs repaid ! 

Gratitude and revenge, before I die, 

Might make me deemed almost a deity. 

Yet hear, mighty Jove ! and grant my prayer, 

Relieve me from affliction and despair ! 

O take my life — or grant me some redress, 

Some foretaste of returning happiness. 

Such is my state — I cannot yet descry 

A chance of vengeance on mine enemy, 

The rude despoiler of my property. 

Yet my full wish, to drink their very blood, 

Some power divine, that watches for my good, 

May yet accomplish. Soon may he fulfil 

My righteous hope, my just and hearty will. 



558 AC.] ANACREON". 105 

Our remarks upon Grecian poetry have thus brought us down to the 
age of Anacreon, Simonides, and Pindar — perhaps the three most re- 
markable lyric poets that any age or country ever produced at the same 
time. The prevailing characteristic of each, however, is peculiar to 
himself. Anacreon is soft and delicate in the extreme. His drinking 
songs have all the gayety of their subject, without any of its grossness. 
His assumed philosophy, however irrational in itself, gives a dignity to 
his manner, and there is a pathos in the thought of fleeting life, which, 
perhaps, constitutes the secret charm of many of his voluptuous effusions. 
Simonides, on the other hand, is always serious and impressive; and 
though capable of the sublime, he does not often indulge in it, but excels 
in those elegiac subjects which call forth peculiar strains of pathos; while 
Pindar's soaring genius led him to indulge in those daring flights of 
sublimity to which no other ancient lyric poet ever even approached. 

Anacreon was a native of Ionia, and was born at Teos, in that coun- 
try, 558 A.O. His ancestors were originally from Attica, and Athengeus 
makes him a kinsman of Solon, the celebrated Athenian law-giver, and 
consequently a ascendant of Codrus, the last of the Athenian kings. 
1?hus connected, he naturally enjoyed every advantage of education which 
that early period atforded ; and hence his time seems to have been unin- 
terruptedly devoted to close and unremitted study, until the eighteenth 
year of his age. At that time an incident occurred which entirely changed 
the aspect of his native country, and desolated his early home. Har- 
pagus, one of the generals of Cyrus the Great, was sent, after Cyrus haci 
eonquered Lydia, into the Grecian States of Asia Minor, to compel them 
to submit to him as the conqueror of Croesus — they having previously 
been subjected to the authority of that Lydian prince. Whilst Miletus 
and many other of the Ionian States submitted without resistance, the 
Teans determined to maintain their independence. They were, however, 
eventually overpowered by the superior force of Harpagus ; but, sooner 
than become the subjects of Cyrus, they resolved to embark with their 
families and effects on board of their fleet, and seek a new abode in some 
distant region of country. After a long and tedious voyage, they arrived 
at Abdera, on the coast of Thrace, and there formed a settlement, which 
they designed as their future home. At first the' Thracians seemed 
pleased with their new neighbors, but for some reason they afterwards 
became disaffected towards them, and resolved to expel them by force 
from the country. A war was the consequence, and in the successive 
conflicts that followed, Anacreon had the misfortune to lose many of his 
friends and connections, the mournful celebration of whose deaths formed 
the earliest theme of his lyric muse. 

Though the contest finally resulted in favor of the Teans, yet the in- 
roads which it made in Anacr eon's family circle were such as to leave 
him no inducement longer to remain in that distant country ; and as the 



106 AN ACRE ON. [Lect. IV. 

odes and epigrams, to which we have already alluded, had spread his 
fame throughout Greece and the adjacent islands, he was invited by Poly- 
crates, tyrant of Samos, to remove to that monarch's court, and there 
take up his permanent abode. Anacreon unhesitatingly complied with 
the tyrant's request, and had dwelt at Samos but a short time before he 
gave evidence of the possession of a genius for politics and state-affairs 
quite equal to that which had already distinguished him as a poet ; in 
consequence of which Polycrates first made him one of his councillors of 
State, and afterwards his prime minister. In this situation Anacreon 
continued during the remainder of the life of Polycrates — about eighteen 
years — basking in the sunshine of royal favor, and indulging, unfortu- 
nately, in all the voluptuousness of that eastern court. 

When intelligence of the death of Polycrates reached Athens, Hip- 
parchus, the wise and sagacious tyrant of that country, desirous of en- 
joying the advantages of the presence and councils of the late prime 
minister of Samos, earnestly solicited Anacreon to remove to his court, 
and make it his permanent residence ; and in order to facilitate his pas- 
sage over the iEgean sea, he sent the State galley, containing thirty 
benches of oars, to convey him thither. At Athens, Anacreon's popu- 
larity as a poet soon became greatly enhanced by the production of some 
of the finest odes that ever emanated from his mind, and were recorded 
by his pen. His habits of inebriety, however, at Athens, increased upon 
him so rapidly, that he soon became fitted for little else than voluptuous 
enjoyment. 

When, by the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogiton, Hipparchus 
was dethroned and slain, Anacreon left Athens and returned to Teos, 
where he designed to remain till the close of his life. The attempt 
of Histaeus, tyrant of Miletus, however, to throw off the Persian yoke, 
compelled Anacreon again to leave his native country, and seek a new 
abode. He first repaired to Abdera ; but finding himself, in consequence 
of the many years that had elapsed since he left there, a comparative 
stranger, he returned to Athens, and there, after many years, closed his 
eventful life. His death occurred in the eighty-fifth year of his age, and 
was immediately produced, according to Suidas, by the excessive drink- 
ing of new wine, an unobserved grape-stone in which choked him to suf- 
focation. The Athenians, notwithstanding Anacreon's irregular habits, 
so greatly admired his genius, that they erected to his memory, soon after 
his death, a most imposing statue, representing, however, an old man in, 
a state of inebriety. 

Few poets have ever been, to a greater extent, the delight of both 
ancients and moderns than Anacreon ; and hence the praises which his 
critics have uniformly bestowed upon him, have been of the most extrav- 
agant kind. His works were, Odes, Epigrams, Elegies, Hymns, and 
Iambics ; and of their merit Horace, the greatest of Roman lyrists, remarks : 



658A.C] ANACREON. 107 

"Whatever old Anacreon sung, 
However tender was the lay, 
In spite of time is ever young. 

Scaliger, a distinguished German critic, calls his verses c sweeter than 
Indian sugar.' ' His beauty,' says Madame Dacier, ' and chiefest ex- 
cellence lay in imitating nature, and in following reason, so that he pre- 
sented to the mind no images but what were noble and natural.' ' The 
odes of Anacreon,' says the celebrated French critic Kapin, ' are flowers, 
beauties, and perpetual graces. It is familiar to him to write what is 
natural unto life, he having an air so delicate, so easy, and so graceful, 
that among all the ancients there is nothing comparable to the method 
he took, nor to the kind of writing he followed. He flowed soft and 
easy ; everywhere diffusing the joy and indolence of his mind through 
his verse, and tuning his harp to the smooth and pleasant temper of his 
soul.' But no one has given a juster character of Anacreon's writings 
than the little God of Love as taught by Cowley : 

All thy verse is sweeter far, 
Than the downy feathers" are 
Of my wings and of my arrows, 
Of my mother's doves and sparrows ; 
Graceful, cleanly, smooth or round, 
All with Venus' girdle bound. 

From the remaining poems of Anacreon, which are more numerous 
than are those of any of his contemporary poets, we shall select such as 
will afford us an opportunity of presenting the various themes which oc- 
cupied his muse, without reference to their respective merit. Of ' i'he 
Dove,' the first poem here introduced, Dr. Johnson remarked, 'As I 
was never struck with anything in the Greek lanp-uagf ' :11 j. read Ana- 
creon's Dove, so have I never read anything in che same language since, 
that pleased me more.' A similar remark might be made, perhaps 
with equal propriety, of each poem that here follows it, and especially 
of the l Address to a Painter ;' for where all are so exquisite, it seems 
invidious to give exclusive preference to any one : 



THE DOVE. 

' Lovely courier of the sky, 
Whence and whither dost thou fly? 
Scattering, as thy pinions play, 
Liquid fragrance all the way. 
Is it business? Is it love? 
Tell me, tell me, gentle Dove.' — „ 
Soft Anacreon's vows I bear, 
Vows to Myrtale the fair ; 



108 ANA ORE ON. [Leot. IV. 

Graced with all that charm the heart, 
Blushing nature, smiling art, 
Yenus, courted by an ode, 
On the Bard her Dove bestow'd. 
Vested with a master's right 
Now Anacreon rules my flight : 
As the letters that you see, 
"Weighty charge consigned to me : 
Think not yet my service hard, 
Joyless task without reward: 
Smiling at my master's gates, 
Freedom my return awaits : 
But the liberal grant in vain 
Tempts me to be wild again. 
Can a prudent Dove decline 
Blissful bondage such as mine ? 
Over hills and fields to roam, 
Fortune's guest without a home* 
Under leaves to hide one's head, 
Slightly shelter'd, coarsely fed ; 
Now my better lot bestows 
Sweet repast, and soft repose ; 
Now the generous bowl I sip 
As it leaves Anacreon's lip ; 
Void of care, and free from dread 
From his fingers snatch his bread, 
Then with luscious plenty gay 
Round his chambers dance and play; 
Or, from wine as courage springs, 
O'er his face expand my wings ; 
And when feast and frolic tire, 
Drop asleep upon his lyre. 
This is all ; be quick and 'go, 
More than all thou can'st not know ; 
^~u lire now my pinions ply, — 
I have chatter'd like a pye ! 



TO A PAINTER. 

Best of painters now dispense 
All thy tinted eloquence: 
Master of the roseate art, 
Paint the mistress of my heart. 
Paint her, absent though she be, 
Paint her as described by me. 

Paint her hair in tresses flowing i 
Black as jet its ringlets glowing: 
If the pallet soar as high, 
Paint their humid fragrancy. 
Let the color smoothly show 
The gentle prominence of brow; 



558A.C] AN AC RE ON. 109 

Smooth as ivory let it shine, 
' Under locks of glossy twine. 

Now her eyebrows length'ning bend ; 
Neither sever them, nor blend: 
Imperceptible the space 
Of their meeting arches trace : 
Be the picture like the maid; 
Her dark eye-lids fringed with shade. 

Now the real glance inspire ; 
Let it dart a liquid fire : 
Let her eyes reflect the day, 
Like Minerva's, hazel-gray, 
Like those of Venus, swimming bright, 
Brimful of moisture and of light. 

Now her faultless nose design 
In its flowing acquiline : 
Let her cheeks transparent gleam, 
Like to roses, strew'd in cream: 
Let her lips seduce to bliss, 
Pouting to provoke the kiss. 

Now her chin minute express, 
Rounded into prettiness : 
There let all the Graces play ; 
In that dimpled circle stray, 
Round her bended neck delay : 
Marble pillar, on the sight 
Shedding smooth its slippery white. 
For the rest, let drapery swim 
In purplish folds o'er every limb; 
But, with flimsy texture, show 
The shape, the skin, that partial glow: 
Enough — herself appears ; 'tis done ; 
The picture breathes ; the paint will speak anon 



CUPID BENIGHTED. 

'Twas noon of night, and round the pole, 
The sullen Bear was seen to roll ; 
And mortals, wearied with the day, 
"Were slumbering all their cares away ; 
An infant, at that dreary hour, 
Came weeping to my silent bower, 
And waked me with a piteous prayer, 
To shield him from the midnight air, 
'And who art thou,' I waking cry, 
1 That bid'st my blissful visions fly 1' 
'Ah, gentle sire,' — the infant said, — 
'In pity take me to thy shed; 
Nor fear deceit ; a lonely child, 
I wander o'er the gloomy wild. 
Chill drops the rain, and not a ray 
Illumes my drear and misty way.' 



110 ANACREON. [Lect. IV. 

I heard the baby's tale of woe ; 
I heard the bitter night-winds blow; 
And, sig-hing for his piteous fate, 
I trimm'd my lamp, and op'd the gate. 
'Twas Love! the little wandering sprite, 
His pinion sparkled through the night. 
I knew him by his bow and dart ; 
I knew him by my fluttering heart. 
Fondly I take him in, and raise 
The dying embers' cheering blaze; 
Press from his dark and clinging hair 
The crystals of the freezing air, 
And in my hand and bosom hold 
His little fingers, thrilling cold. 

And now the ember's genial ray 
Had warm'd his anxious fears away: 
* 1 pray thee,' said the wanton child, 
(My bosom trembled as he smil'd,) 
'I pray thee, let me try my bow, 
For through the rain I've wandered so, 
That much I fear, the midnight shower 
Has injur'd its elastic power.' — 
His fatal bow the urchin drew ; 
Swift from the string the arrow flew; 
As swiftly flew a glancing flame, 
And to mine inmost spirit came ! 
And 'Fare thee well,' — I heard him say, 
As, laughing wild, he wing'd his way ; 
'Fare thee well, for now, I know, 
The rain has not relaxed my bow; 
It still can send a thrilling dart, 
As thou shalt own with all thy heart !' 



A DREAM. 

At midnight, when my slumb'ring head 

Sank on the purple-quilted bed, 

As wine its swimming raptures shed : 

Methought I ran a tip-toe race 

With gadding maids of frolic grace: 

"While youths, like, Bacchus, fair and young, 

Pursued me with reviling tongue, 

And keen their taunting envy flung. 



"When, as I sought to snatch a kiss, 
The vision fled — the sleep of bliss : 
And left alone, I felt in vain 
The tort'ring wish to sleep again. 



558A.C] ANACREON. Ill 

RETURN OF SPRING. 

See the spring appears in view; 

The Graces showers of roses strew. 

See how ocean's wave serene 

Smooths the limpid, glassy green : 

With oaring feet the sea-duck swims ; 

The stork in airy journey skims : 

The sun shines out in open day ; 

The shadowy clouds are roll'd away ; 

The cultur'd fields are smiling bright 

In verdant gaiety of light: 

Earth's garden spreads its tender fruits ; 

The juicy olive swelling shoots ; 

The grape, the fount of Bacchus, twines 

In clusters, red with embryo wines : 

Through leaves, through boughs it bursts its way. 

And buds, and ripens on the day. 

BEAUTY. 

To all that breathe the air of heaven 
Some boon of strength has Nature given. 
In forming the majestic bull, 
She fenced with wreathed horns his skull ; 
A hoof of strength she lent the steed, 
And winged the timorous hare with speed; 
She gave the lion fangs of terror, 
And o'er the ocean's crystal mirror, 
Taught the unnumbered scaly throng 
To trace the liquid path along; 
While for the umbrage of the grove 
She plumed the warbling world of love. 
To man she gave, in that proud hour, 
The boon of intellectual power ; 
Then what, woman, what for thee 
Was left in Nature's treasury ? 
She gave thee beauty — mightier far 
Than all the pomp and power of war. 
Nor steel, nor fire itself hath power 
Like woman in her conquering hour, 
Be thou but fair, — mankind adore thee! 
Smile, — and a world is weak before thee ! 



THE ROSE. 

Buds of roses, virgin flowers, 
Culled from Cupid's balmy bowers, 
In the bowl of Bacchus steep, 
Till with crimson drops they weep. 



112 ANACREON. [Lect. IV. 

Twine the rose, the garland twine, 

Every leaf distilling wine : 

Drink and smile, and learn to think, 

That we were born to smile and drink. 

Rose ! thou art the sweetest flower, 

That ever drank the amber shower ; 

Rose, thou art the fondest child 

Of dimpled spring, the wood-nymph wild ! \ 

Even the gods, who walk the sky, 

Are amorous of thy scented sigh. 

Cupid, tdb, in Paphian shades, 

His hair with rosy fillets braids, 

When with the blushing sister Graces, 

The wanton, winding dance he traces; 

Then bring me, showers of roses bring, 

And shed them o'er me while I sing ; 

Or, while, great Bacchus, round thy shrine. 

Wreathing my brow with rose and vine, 

I lead some bright nymph through the dance, 

Commingling soul with every glance. 



FOLLY OF AVARICE. 

If hoarded gold possessed the power 

To lengthen life's too fleeting hour, 

And purchase from the hand of death 

A little space, a moment's breath, 

How I would love the precious ore, 

And every hour should swell my store ; 

That when Death came, with shadowy pinion, 

To waft me to his black dominion, 

I might, by bribes, my doom delay, 

And bid him call another day. — 

But since not all earth's golden store 

Can buy for us one bright hour more, 

Why should we vainly mourn our fate, 

Or sigh at life's uncertain date ? 

Nor wealth nor grandeur can illume 

The silent midnight of the tomb. 

No — give to others hoarded treasures — 

Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures ; 

The goblet rich, the board of friends, 

Whose social souls the goblet blends ; 

And mine, while yet I've life to live, 

Those joys which love alone can give. 



CUPID AND THE BEE. 

Cupid once upon a bed 

Of roses laid his weary head ; 

Luckless urchin, not to see 

Within the leaves a slumbering bee! 



558A.C] A NACRE ON. 113 

The bee awaked — with anger wild 
The bee awaked, and stung the child. 
Loud and piteous are his cries. 
To Venus quick, he runs, he flies; 
1 Oh mother ! I am wounded through — 
I die with pain — what shall I do? 
Stung by some little angry thing, 
Some serpent on a tiny wing — 
A bee it was, for once I know 
I heard a peasant call it so.' 
Thus he spoke, and she the while 
, Heard him with a soothing smile; 

Then said: my infant if so much 
Thou feel the little wild-bee's touch, 
How must the heart, ah, Cupid, be, 
The hapless heart, that's stung by thee? 



DRINKING. 

Observe, when mother Earth is dry, 
She drinks the droppings of the sky ; 
And then the dewy cordial gives 
To every thirsty plant that lives. 
The vapors, which at evening sweep, 
Are beverage to the swelling deep : 
And while the rosy sun appears 
He drinks the ocean's misty tears. 
The Moon, too, quaffs her paly stream 
Of lustre from the solar beam. 
Then hence with all your sober thinking 
Since Nature's holiest law is drinking : 
I'll make the laws of Nature mine, 
And pledge the universe in wine. 



HAPPY LIFE. 

Pill the bowl with rosy wine! 
Around our temples roses twine 1 
And let us cheerfully awhile 
Like the "Wine and Roses smile. 
Crown'd with roses, we contemn 
Gyges' golden diadem. 
To-day is ours; what do we fear? 
To-day is ours ; we have it here : 
Let's treat it kindly, that it may 
Wish, at least, with us to stay, 
Let's banish business, banish sorrow, 
To the gods belongs to-morrow. 
8 



114 ANACREON. [Lect. IV. 



CONVIVIAL. 



JNVer shall that man my comrade be, 
Or drink a generous glass with me, 
"Who, o'er his bumper brags of sears, 
Of noisy broils, and mournful "wars. 
But welcome thou, congenial soul, 
And share my purse, and drain my bowl, 
Who canst, in social knot, combine 
The Muse, Good-humor, Love, and Wine. 



tuinxt \\t /tftji. 

SIMONIDES.— PINDAR. 

WE observed, in the last lecture, that Anacreon, Simonides, and Pin- 
dar were, perhaps, the three most remarkable lyric poets that any 
age or country ever, simultaneously, produced ; and then proceeded to set 
forth the claims of Anacreon to the honor of this exalted distinction. His 
two eminent contemporaries will now occupy our attention. 

Simonides, the second poet in this distinguished trio, was born in the 
island of Ceos, 556 A.C., and was, therefore, only two years younger 
than Anacreon. Of his family, and the manner in which he passed the 
early part of his life no intelligence has been preserved ; but it is evident 
that he was well educated, for he had scarcely reached the age of man- 
hood when we find him engaged in conducting a school, the design of 
which was to prepare the youth of distinguished families to take part in 
the public chorusses employed in solemn and religious exercises. His 
native island did not, however, long afford sufficient scope for the exercise 
of his abilities, or sufficient opportunities to gratify his aspiring ambition ; 
and he, therefore, removed to Athens, at that time the great centre of 
everything excellent in literature and taste, and was there received by 
the accomplished Hipparchus, with the most flattering marks of honor 
and distinction. At Athens Simonides found for his associates, Anac- 
reon, Pindar, and many other eminent wits of the age ; and enjoying the 
patronage of the splendid Athenian court, he soon reached the height 
at which his ambitious aspirings aimed. 

Though Athens was the general residence of Simonides, yet he did 
not confine himself to that city ; but as occasion offered frequently visited 
different States of Greece, and in his journeyings embraced every oppor- 
tunity that presented itself to celebrate, in verse, the deeds of departed 
excellence, or to rescue from oblivion, fame that might otherwise have 
been lost. After the death of Hipparchus he removed to the court of 
Scopas, tyrant of Thessaly, and by his verses in honor of that prince, pre- 
served from oblivion a name to which no other honor can be attached. 

The elegies which Simonides there produced in commemoration Of 



116 SIMONIDES. [Lect.V. 

the departed dead, naturally brought him, in the way of remuneration, 
large sums of money, in consequence of which he was charged by the con- 
temporary poets with degrading the heavenly gift of poetry by prostituting 
it to the base purposes of gain. Indeed, avarice seems to have been his 
prevailing characteristic, and, perhaps, his only fault, When this vice 
was openly charged upon him, instead of denying it, he calmly replied that 
{ he would rather leave a fortune to his enemies at his death, than to be com- 
pelled, through poverty, to seek assistance from his friends while living.' 
Having resided at Athens and in Thessaly for many years, Simonides 
finally, on invitation of Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, removed to the court 
of that monarch, and there passed the remainder of his life. His death 
occurred, according to Athenseus, in the ninety -first year of his age, and his 
remains were honored with a splendid funeral, an appropriate epitaph, 
composed probably by himself, being inscribed upon his tomb. His sep- 
ulchre is said by Suidas to have been ruthlessly destroyed by Phoenix, a 
general of the Agrigentines, who used its materials for the construction of 
a tower, when he was besieging Syracuse. 

As Simonides was a philosopher as well as a poet, and, perhaps, 
equally excellent in science as in literature, Hiero and his queen, with 
both of whom he lived on terms of close personal intimacy, soon became 
not only deeply interested in his conversations, but so devotedly attached 
to his person, that they made him their friend and confident, and were in 
the habit of indulging in frequent and even familiar discussions with him. 
On one of these occasions the Mug abruptly asked Simonides, " What 
God was ?" The philosophic poet, after hesitating for a moment, desired 
the monarch to allow him to postpone the answer to so important a ques- 
tion until the following day ; but when the hour at which his answer was 
to be given arrived, he desired a second postponement of two days longer, 
and at the expiration of that time, finding himself as far from being able 
to answer the king's question as at its first suggestion, he frankly ac- 
knowledged that the subject was beyond his comprehension, and that the 
longer he reflected upon it the more inexplicable it became. 

One of the most remarkable features of Simonides' character was his 
piety. To this all antiquity bears testimony, and many instances, such 
as those which follow, are cited to show that he was under the special 
protection of the gods. Cicero, on the authority of Callimachus, states 
that at a banquet given by Scopas of Thessaly, when Simonides had 
sung a poem which he had composed in honor of his patron, and in which, 
according to the custom of the poets in their epinicion odes, he had 
adorned his composition by devoting a great part of it to the praises of 
Castor and Pollux, the tyrant had the meanness to say that he would 
give the poet only half of the stipulated payment for his ode, and that 
he might apply for the remainder, if he chose, to the Tyndaridse, to 



556A.C.] SIMONIDES. 117 

whom he had given an equal share of the praise. It was not long "before a 
message was brought to Simonides, that two young men were standing at the 
door, and earnestly demanded to see him. He rose from his seat, went out, 
and found no one ; but, during his absence, the building he had just left 
fell down upon the banqueters, and crushed to death Scopas and all his 
friends, whom we may suppose to have laughed heartily at his barbarous 
jest. And so the Dioscuri paid the poet their half of the reward for his 
ode. Callimachus, in a fragment which we still possess, puts into the 
poet's mouth some beautiful elegiac verses in celebration of this event. 

Another instance of the direct interposition of the gods for his protec- 
tion, in reward of his piety, is given by Tully, and is as follows : — Hap- 
pening to discover, as he was leisurely walking on the sea-beach, awaiting 
the sailing of the vessel in which he had taken passage for Syracuse, the 
dead body of a man who had recently been drowned, and as the corpse 
was that of a stranger, he immediately gave to it at his own expense a 
decent burial. In the course of the following night he had a vision of 
the dead man, for whose remains he had performed the pious office, and 
was by him admonished not to sail the next day as he had designed. 
He heeded the admonition, and remained on shore ; but his companions, 
putting to sea, were all shipwrecked and drowned. The marvellous 
character of these incidents must be apparent to every intelligent reader 
of the present day ; and our object in introducing them here is not to ex- 
press our confidence in their verity, but merely to exhibit the effect 
which the faith of the ancients in the piety of Simonides, exercised over 
their most exalted minds. 

Of all the poets of antiquity few were more honored by their contem- 
poraries than Simonides ; and to the esteem, admiration, and even rev- 
erence in which he was held, the purity and moral elevation of his life 
doubtless essentially contributed. Xenophon, the great historian, does 
him the honor to make him a speaker with Hiero, in his dialogue of 
tyranny ; and Plato, in his Protagoras, introduces Socrates expounding 
his verses, and elsewhere bestows upon him "the imposing epithet of 
Divine. 

The works of Simonides consisted chiefly of Elegies, Odes, Epigrams, 
and Laments. His genius had few of the attributes of sublimity, and 
hence the chief characteristics of his poetry were sweetness and elaborate 
finish, combined with the truest poetic conception and perfect power of 
expression ; though in originality and fervor he was far inferior, not only 
to the early lyric poets, such as Sappho and Alcaeus, but also to his con- 
temporary Pindar. His elegies exhibit a tone of melancholy pathos, and 
a depth of feeling, that strikingly reminds one of the strains of the 
Prophet Jeremiah ; and his ' Lamentation of Danae,' is remarkably 
similar to the Lamentations of that prophet over the destruction of 



; / 



118 SIMONIDES. [Lect. Y. 

Jerusalem, and the fall of the Jewish nation. His odes, especially those 
on the four great battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and 
Platsea, exhibit much more fire and energy than his other poems ; but 
even these were pervaded with all the tenderness of which the subjects 
were susceptible, and rather dwelt upon the sacrifices of life which the 
conflict cost, than upon the triumphs which in them were achieved. 

The fragmentary remains of this great poet are very limited, and are 
chiefly comprised in the pieces which follow. The Lamentation of 
Danae, the most important of these fragments, is based upon the well- 
known tradition that Danae and her infant son were confined, by order 
of Acrisius, king of Argos, in a wooden chest, and then exposed to the 
merciless waves — that they were afterwards rescued and saved from per- 
ishing by Dictys, brother of Polydectes, king of the island of Seriphus : 

LAMENTATION OF DAN^E. 

"When round the well-fram'd ark the blowing blast 

Roar'd, and the heaving whirlpools of the deep 

With rongh'ning surge seem'd threat'ning to o'erturn 

The wide-tost vessel, not with tearless cheeks 

The mother round her infant gently twined 

Her tender arm, and cried, ' Ah, me ! my child ! 

What sufferings I endure ! thou sleeps't the while, . 

Inhaling in thy milky-breathing breast 

The balm of slumber ; though imprison'd here 

In undelightful dwelling ; brassy -wedged ; 

Alone illumed by the stars of night, 

And black and dark within. Thou heed'st not 

The wave that leaps above thee, while its spray 

Wets not the locks deep-clust'ring round thy head; 

Nor hear'st the shrill winds' hollow whisp'ring sounds 

While on thy purple downy mantle stretch'd, 

With count'nance flush'd in sleeping loveliness. 

Then if this dreadful peril would to thee 

Be dreadful, turn a light unconscious ear 

To my lamentings : sleep ! I bid thee sleep, 

My infant ! oh, may the tremendous surge 

Sleep also ! may th' immeasurable scene 

Of watery perils sleep, and be at rest ! 

And void, and frustrate, prove this dark device, 

I do conjure thee, Jove! and though my words 

May rise to boldness, at thy hands I ask 

A righteous vengeance, by this infant's aid!' 

THE MISERIES OF LIFE. 

Jove rules the world, and with resistless sway, 
Demands to-morrow what he gave to-day; 
In vain our thoughts to future scenes we cast, 
Or only read them darkly in the past; 



556A.C] SIMONIDES. 119 

For Hope enchanting poiats to new delights, 

And charms •with dulcet sounds and heavenly sights - 

Expecting yet some fancied bliss to share, 

We grasp at bubbles that dissolve in air, 

And some a day, and some whole years await 

The whims and chances of capricious fate ; 

Nor yet the lovely visions are possest — 

Another year remains to make them blest, 

While age steals on to sweep their dreams away, 

And grim diseases hover round their prey ; 

Or war, with iron hold, unlocks the grave, 

Devouring myriads of the young and brave. 

Some on the billows rocked, that roll on high, 

Cling to the plank in vain, and wasted die; 

Some by the halter lay their miseries down 

And rush, unsummoned, to the world unknown. 

Our very sweets possess a secret harm, 

Teem with distress, and poison while they charm. 

The fatal Sisters hover round our birth, 

And dash with bitter dregs our cup on earth: 

Yet cease to murmur at thy fate in vain, 

And in oblivion steep the shaft of pain. 

VIRTUE. 

Virtue in legend old is said to dwell 

On high rocks, inaccessible ; 

But swift descends from high, 
And haunts of virtuous men the chaste society. 

No man shall ever rise 
Conspicuous in his fellow-mortal's eyes 

To manly virtue's pinnacle ; 

Unless within his soul, he bear 
The drops of painful sweat, that slowly well 
From spirit-wasting thought, and toil, and care. 

INSCRIPTIONS. 

ON ANACREON. 

Bland mother of the grape ! all-gladdening vine ! 

Teeming inebriate joy ! whose tendrils blown 
Crisp-woven in winding trail, now green entwine 

This pillar's top, this mount, Anacreon's tomb. 
As lover of the feast, th' untemper'd bowl, 
While the full draught was reeling in his soul, 
He smote upon the harp, whose melodies 

Were tuned to girlish loves, till midnight fled ; 
Now, fall'n to earth, embower him as he lies, 

Thy purpling clusters blushing o'er his head: 
Still be fresh dew upon the branches hung, 
Like that which breathed from his enchanting tongue. 



120 SIMONIDES. [Lect. V. 



ON THOSE WHO FELL AT THERMOPYLAE. 

In dark Thermopylae they lie; 
Oh death of glory thus to die ! 
Their tomb an altar is, their name 
A mighty heritage of fame: 
Their dirge is triumph; cankering rust, 
And time that turneth all to dust, 
That tomb shall never waste nor hide,— 
The tomb of warriors true and tried. 
The full-voiced praise of Greece around 
Lies buried in that sacred mound; 
Where Sparta's king, Leonidas, 
In death eternal glory has. 



ON THE SAME. 

Greatly to die, if this be glory's height, 

For the fair meed we own our fortune kind ; 

For Greece and Liberty we plunged to-night, 
And left a never-dying name behind. 

But of all the commemorations of the l battle of Thermopylae,' that 
have come down to us, "by far the most celebrated is the Epitaph, 
comprised in two lines, written by Simonides, and placed upon the monu- 
ment erected to the memory of those who there so gloriously fell in de- 
fence of their country. Of this Epitaph or Inscription, Christopher 
North, in an article on the Greek Anthology, in Blackwood's Magazine, 
makes the following remark : — " The oldest and best inscription is that 
on the altar-tomb of the Three Hundred. Do you remember it ? Here 
it is — the Greek — with three Latin, and eighteen English versions 
Start not : it is but two lines ; and all Greece, for centuries, had them 
by heart. She forgot them, and c Greece was living Greece no more !' 
Of the various English translations of this celebrated Epitaph, the fol- 
lowing are, perhaps, the best : — 

O stranger, tell it to the Lacedaemonians, 
That we lie here in obedience to her precepts. 



Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, 
That here, obedient to her laws, we lie. 



ON CDION'S LAND AND SEA VICTORY. 

Ne'er since the olden time, when Asia stood 
First torn from Europe by the ocean flood, 
Since horrid Mars thus poured on either shore 
The storm of battle and the wild uproar, 



556A.C.] SIMONIDES. 121 

Hath man by land and sea such glory won, 
Ne'er seen such deeds, as thou, this day, hast done. 
By land, the Medes in thousands press the ground; 
By sea, an hundred Tyrian ships are drown'd 
"With all their martial host ; while Asia stands. 
Deep groaning by, and wrings her helpless hands. 



ON THOSE WHO FELL AT EURYMEDON. 

These by the streams of famed Eurymedon 
Their short but brilliant race of life have run ; 
In winged ships and on the embattled field 
Alike, they forced the Median bows to yield, 
Breaking their foremost ranks. Now here they lie, 
Their names inscribed on rolls of victory. 

ON THE DEATH OF HIPPARCHUS. 

Fair was the light, that brighten'd as it grew, 

Of Freedom, on Athena's favor'd land, 
"When him, the Tyrant, bold Harmodius slew, 

Link'd with Aristogiton hand in hand. 

ON ARCHEDICE, THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPIAS. 

Daughter of him, who ruled the Athenian plains, 
This honored urn Archedice contains; 
Of tyrants mother, daughter, sister, wife, 
Her soul was humble, and unstained her life. 

ON A STATUE OF CUPID, BY PRAXITELES. 

Well has the sculptor felt what he exprest; 
He drew the living model from his breast. 
Will not his Phryne the rare gift approve, 
Me for myself exchanging, love for love ? 
Lost are my fabled bow and magic dart; 
But, only gazed upon, I win the heart. 

INSCRIBED ON A CENOTAPH. 

cloud-capt Gerania, rock unblest! 

Would thou had'st rear'd far hence thy haughty crest, 

By Tanais wild, or wastes where Ister flows; 

Nor look'd on Sciron from thy silent snows! 

A cold, cold corpse he lies beneath the wave, 

This tomb speaks tenantless, his ocean-grave. 

It was in such brief effusions as the preceding Inscriptions and Epi 



122 PINDAR. [Lect. V. 

taphs that Simonides so remarkably excelled, as to carry off the prize in 
almost every contest ; hence his fifty-six poetic triumphs, the last of 
which was obtained at Tarentum, in the south part of Italy, when he had 
passed the eightieth year of his age. The following fragments will close 
our notice of this attractive old poet : 
\ 

FRAGMENTS. 

I. 
Human strength is unavailing; 
Boastful tyranny unfailing; 
All in life is care and labor ; 
And our unrelenting neighbor, 
Death, forever hovering round ; 
Whose inevitable wound, 
"When he comes prepar'd to strike, 
Good and bad will feel alike. 

II. 
Mortal, dost thou dare to say, 
"What may chance another day ? 
Or thy fellow mortal seeing, 
Circumscribe his term of being ? 
Swifter than the insect's wings 
Is the change of mortal things. 

in. 
"Whate'er of virtue or of power, 

Or good or great we vainly call, 
Each moment eager to devour, 

One vast Charybdis swallows alL 

IV. 

The first of human joys is health; 
Next, beauty ; and then, honest wealth ; 
The fourth, youth's fond delights to prove 
"With those — (but most with her) — we love. 

Pindar, the last of the great trio of lyric poets, whom we have at pres- 
ent under consideration, and according to the universal testimony of the 
ancients, by far the greatest lyric poet of Greece, was a native of 
Boeotia, and was born either at Thebes or at Cynocephalse, a village in 
the territory of that city, 522 A.C. He belonged to a dignified and 
poetic race, and his parents, Daiphantus and Clidice, both of noble 
, , origin, perceiving in him early indications of extraordinary genius, sent 
him, in his youth, to Athens, to be instructed in the poetic art. This 
determination on their part was hastened, according to tradition, by the 
miraculous foreshadowing of his future glory as a poet, by a swarm of 
bees which, in his infancy rested upon his lips while he was asleep. 



522 AC.] PINDAR. 123 

Lyric poetry among tlie Greeks, it must be remembered, was so inti- 
mately connected with music, dancing, and the whole training of the 
chorus, that the lyric poet required no small amount of education to fit 
him for the exercise of his profession ; and at Athens his education eould, 
at that time, be much more readily obtained than in Thebes, where poetry 
received comparatively little attention. Besides, Boeotia, his native 
country, was, through the heaviness of its atmosphere, so uncongenial to 
the fostering of genius, or the cultivation of intellect, as to be regarded 
throughout Greece as proverbially suppressive of all mental or intellec- 
tual effort. Pindar himself, in after-life, acknowledged the truth and 
force of the proverb, as applicable to the mass of his countrymen, but 
made himself an exception to the general rule. 

Having completed his studies at Athens, Pindar, before he had 
passed the twentieth year of his age, returned to Thebes, and immedi- 
ately became intimate with Myrtis and Corinna of Tanagra, two poet- 
esses who then enjoyed great celebrity in Boeotia. Corinna appears to 
have exercised very considerable influence upon the youthful poet, and 
he is supposed to have been not a little indebted to her example and 
precepts. It is related by Plutarch that she recommended to Pindar to 
introduce mythical narratives into his poems, and that when, in accord- 
ance with her advice, he composed a hymn in which he interwove almost 
all the Theban mythology, she smiled and said, ( We ought to sow with 
the hand, and not with the whole sack.' With both these poetesses Pindar 
contended for the prize in the musical contests at Thebes ; and although 
Corinna found fault with Myrtis, for entering into the contest with him, 
saying, ' I blame the clear-toned Myrtis, that she, a woman born, should 
enter the lists with Pindar ;' still, she herself is said to have contended 
with him five times, and on each occasion to have gained the prize. 
Pausanias does not, indeed, speak of more than one victory, and men- 
tions a picture which he saw at Tanagra, in which Corinna was repre- 
sented binding her hair with a fillet, in token of her victory ; which he 
attributes as much to her beauty, and to the circumstance that she wrote 
in the iEolic dialect, as to her poetical talents. 

Pindar spent, however, only a very short time in these comparatively 
trifling contests ; but, abandoning the lighter song, boldly struck his lyre 
to the nobler strains of the heroic and sublime : — 

He felt the fire that in him glowed, 

and his first Pythian ode, composed at the early age of twenty, extended 
his fame throughout every section of Greece ; and gave him so great a 
reputation, that he was soon employed by different states and princes in 
all parts of the Hellenic world, to compose for them heroic and choral 
songs for all special occasions. For such works he received large sums 
of money, and many presents ; but he never degenerated, like Simonides, 



124 PINDAR. [Lect. V. 

into a common mercenary poet, and he continued to preserve, to his latest 
days, the respect of ail parts of Greece. 

The next ode of Pindar, in point of time, which has come down to us, 
was written in his twenty-seventh year, and was composed in honor of 
Xenocrates of Agrigentum, who had gained the prize at the chariot-race 
at the Pythian games, by means of his son Thrasybulus. It is unneces- 
sary, however, to relate at length the different occasions upon which he 
wrote his other odes. The principal personages for whom he composed 
them were Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse ; Alexander, son of Amyntas, king 
of Macedonia ; Theron, tyrant of Agrigentum ; Arcesilaus, king of Cy- 
rene ; besides many others, written for the free States of Greece, and 
also for private individuals. He was courted especially by Alexander, 
king of Macedonia, and Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse ; and the praises 
which he bestowed upon the former are supposed to have been the chief 
reason which led his descendant, Alexander the Great, to spare the house 
of the poet, when he destroyed the city of Thebes. 

Pindar's stated residence was at Thebes, though he frequently left 
home in order to witness the great public games, and to visit the states 
and distinguished men and monarchs who courted his friendship and 
employed his services. When about fifty years of age he thus visited 
the court of Hiero, in consequence of the pressing invitations of that 
monarch; but he remained only about four years at Syracuse — as he 
loved an independent life, and did not care to cultivate the courtly arts 
which rendered his countryman, Simonides, a more welcome guest at the 
table of their patron. But the estimation in which Pindar was held by 
his contemporaries, is still more strikingly seen in the honors conferred 
upon him by the free States of Greece. Although a Theban, he was 
always a great favorite with the Athenians, whom he frequently praised in 
his poems, and in whose city he passed, as a public guest, many years of 
his life. In one of his dithyrambs he calls it ' the support of Greece, glo- 
rious Athens, the divine city.' The Athenians testified their gratitude 
by voting him the freedom of their city, and giving him ten thousand 
drachmas; and soon after his death, they erected a magnificent statue to 
his honor. The inhabitants of Ceos employed him to compose for them 
a processional song, although they had two celebrated poets of their own 
— Simonides and Bacchylide ; and the Khodians had his seventh Olympian 
ode written in letters of gold in the temple of the Lindian Athenae. Thus 
honored and revered he passed his useful and brilliant career, and finally 
died in his native city, in the eightieth year of his age, and 442 A.C. 

The only poems of Pindar that have come down to us entire, are his 
Epi?iicia, or triumphal odes ; but these were only a small portion of his 
works. He wrote, also, Hymns to the Gods, Paeans, Dithyrambs, Odes 
for Processions, Songs of Maidens, Drinking Songs, Dirges, and Encomia, 
or Panegyrics on Princes. Of these we have numerous fragments, but 



522A.C] PINDAR. 125 

no entire piece. One peculiarity about all his poems is the evidence 
they give that he was deeply penetrated with a strong religious feeling. 
He had not imbibed any of the scepticism which began to take root in 
Athens after the Persian war. The old myths were for the most part 
realities to him, and he accepted them with implicit credence, except 
when they exhibited the gods in a point of view which was repugnant 
to his moral feelings. For, in consequence of the strong ethical sense 
which he possessed, he was unwilling to believe the myths which repre- 
sented the gods and heroes as guilty of immoral acts; and he accordingly 
frequently rejects some tales, and changes others, because they are inconsis- 
tent with his own conceptions of the attributes and character of the gods. 
The Epinicia, or triumphal odes of Pindar, are divided into four 
books, celebrating respectively the victories gained in the Olympian, 
Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games. In order properly to under- 
stand them, we must bear in mind the nature of the occasion for which 
they were composed, and the object which the poet had in view. A vic- 
tory gained in one of the four great national festivals, conferred honor 
not only upon the conqueror and his family, but also upon the city to 
which he belonged. It was accordingly celebrated with great pomp and 
ceremony. Such a celebration began. with a procession to a temple, 
where a sacrifice was offered, and it ended with a splendid banquet. For 
this celebration a poem was expressly composed, and was sung by a cho- 
rus, trained for the purpose, either by the poet himself, or by some other 
person whom he employed for that purpose. The poems were sung 
either during the procession to the temple, or at the comus, at the close 
of the banquet. In the odes of Pindar prepared for such occasions, he 
rarely describes the victory itself, as the scene was supposed to be famil- 
iar to all the spectators ; but he dwells upon the glory of the victor, and 
celebrates chiefly either his wealth or his skill — his wealth, if he had 
gained the victory in the chariot race, since it was only the wealthy that 
could contend for the prize in this contest ; his skill, if he had been ex- 
posed to peril in the contest. He frequently celebrates also the piety 
and goodness of the victor ; for with the deep religious feeling, which 
pre-eminently characterizes Pindar, he believed that the moral and re- 
ligious character of the conqueror conciliated the favor of the gods, and 
gained for him their support and assistance in the contest. For the same 
reason he dwells at great length upon the mythical origin of the person 
whose victory he extols, and connects his exploits with the similar ex- 
ploits of the heroic ancestors of the race or nation to which he belongs. 
These mythical narratives occupy a very prominent feature in almost all 
of his odes, and are not introduced for the sake of ornament, but have a 
close and intimate connection with the whole object and purpose of each 
poem. Such are the odes of Pindar. 

We have had occasion frequently, in the course of these remarks, to 



126 PINDAR. [Lect. V. 

allude to the honors which Pindar's contemporaries heaped upon him. 
A fixed sentiment seems to have pervaded all antiquity that the attri- 
butes of his mind were entirely unearthly — that his poetical aspirations 
soared so far beyond those of his contemporaries or predecessors, as to 
elevate him entirely above the reach of parallel. In accordance with 
this idea, there was placed in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and ap- 
propriated exclusively to his use, an iron chair, in which he was seated 
when he repaired thither to sing the praises of the Immortal there wor- 
shiped ; and as though this were not sufficient honor, the Priestess of the 
Temple directed all who came there to present their first fruit offerings, 
to dedicate a part of them to the divine poet. His residence in the city 
of Thebes was, on two different occasions, spared when all the rest of the 
city was laid desolate — first, by the Lacedaemonians, and afterwards by 
Alexander the Great. A victory even at the great Grecian games was 
incomplete, and wanted its crowning ornament, until celebrated in his 
immortal strains ; and however far these strains transcended those of 
all other lyric poets in grandeur, the depth of erudition which pervaded 
them was still more surprising. It was this that led Plato, in one of 
his dialogues, to introduce him in conference with the tyrant Hiero, and to 
call him the ' Wisest', and the ' Divine,' and ^Eschylus, the father of dram- 
atic poetry, to call him the ' Great,' and Athenseus the ' Most Sublime.' 

It has been usual among English critics, but we confess that the fancy 
is, to us, a singular one, to compare Pindar to Gray, the author of the 
1 Elegy in a Country Church- Yard ; ' for between these two poets we can- 
not ourselves perceive one single trace of resemblance. Pindar was all 
fire and strength, while Gray's whole poetic life was spent in elaborating 
a few slender odes, in all of which we trace the commonplaces of the 
scholar's reading, and smell the odor of the lamp. Collins, to our mind, 
bears a much closer resemblance to the simple spontaneousness, the fine 
abstraction, and the ideal sublime of Pindar. Perhaps a nearer parallel 
to Pindar's odes is to be found in the chorusses of Milton, than in the 
poems of any other modern writer. We perceive in the lyrics of Mil- 
ton and in the odes of Pindar, a similar copiousness of thought, and 
expression, and images, rolling forth as if involuntarily, from the abun- 
dant sources of fancy and reflection. A similar severe and chaste style, 
relieved by the freshness of color, and picturesqueness of manner in 
descriptive painting, and the intermixture of gorgeously romantic im- 
agery : a similar lofty and calm abstractedness of imagination, and the 
same purity and unworldliness of feeling ; the same religious tone, and 
almost oracular emphasis, in the uttering of moral truths. 

We present, as our first selection from the poems of Pindar, one of 
his celebrated odes to Iliero of Syracuse, by whom he was treated, 
during his residence at his court, rather as a prince than as a poet ; in 



522A.C.] PINDAR. 12 Y 

return for which the great lyrist poured forth those strains to the honor 
of the king and in praise of his victories, which have contributed more 
to the immortalizing of the memory of that accomplished monarch than 
all his own splendid deeds combined. 



THE FIRST PYTHIAN ODE. 

TO HIERO OF .ETNA, TYRANT OP SYRACUSE, ON HIS VICTORY IN THE 
CHARIOT-RACE. 

I. 1. 

Oh lyre of gold : 

"Which Phoebus, and that sister choir, 

With crisped locks of darkest violet hue, 

Their seemly heritage forever hold : 

The cadenc'd step hangs listening on thy chime; 

Spontaneous joys ensue ; 

The vocal troops obey thy signal-notes: 

While sudden from the shrilling wire 

To lead the solemn dance thy murmur floats 

In its preluding flight of sound: 

And in thy streams of music drown'd 

The forked light'ning in Heaven's azure clime 

Quenches its ever-flowing fire. 

I. 2. 
The monarch-eagle then hangs down 
On either side his flagging wing, 
And on Jove's sceptre rocks with slumbering head: 
Hovering vapors darkling spread 
O'er his arch'd beak, and veil his filmy eye: 
Thou pour'st a sweet mist from thy string ; 
And, as thy music's thrilling arrows fly, 
He feels soft sleep effuse 
From every pore its balmy-stealing dews, 
And heaves his ruffled plumes in slumber's ecstacy. 
Stern Mars hath dropp'd his sharp'd and barbed spear ; 
And starts, and smiles to hear 

Thy warbled chaunts, while joy flows in upon his mind : 
Thy music's weapons pierce, disarm 
The demons of celestial kind, 
By Apollo's music-charms, 
And accent of the zoned, full-bosom'd, maids 
That haunt Pieria's shades. 

I. 3. 

But they, whom Jove abhors, with shuddering ear 

The voices of the Muses hear ; 

Whether they range the earth or tossing sea: 

Such is that hundred-headed giant, he 

Of blessed Gods an enemy, 



128 PINDAR. [Lect. V. 

Typhon ; who lies in chasm of Tartarus drear : 

To -whom Cilicia's legend- fabled cave 

His nourish'd being gave : 

Now on his shaggy breast 

Sicilia's isle and Cuma's sea-girt shore 

Are ponderously prest ; 

And that round pillar of the sky 

"With congelation hoar, 

iEtna, crushes him from high ; 

While the year rolls slow 

Nurse of keen-encrusted snow. 



II. 1. 

From forth whose secret caves 

Fountains pure of liquid flame 

With rush and roaring came; 

And rivers rolling steep in fiery waves 

In a stream of whitening smoke 

On glowing ether broke : 

And in the dark and dead of night 

With pitchy-gathering cloud and glare of light, 

The volleying fire was heard to sweep 

Masses of shiver'd rock with crashing sound, 

Dash'd midst the sullen ocean's waters deep. 

There that Vulcanian dragon casts 

His fiery whirlpool blasts; 

Blazing in horrid light 

On the scared ken of mortal sight; 

Far bursting, marvellous to hear, 

On the passing traveller's ear. 

II. 2. 

A Miracle of sight and sound 

To him that muses, how fast-bound 

That giant wallows on his flinty bed ; 

Under ^Etna's beetling head 

With blackening foliage crown'd, 

And deep beneath the mountain's roots profound: 

While as his limbs at their huge length are spread, 

His back is scarr'd with many a rocky wound. 

Oh, grant me, Jove 1 with strains like these 

Thy gracious ear to please : 

This forehead of green earth, this mount in air 

Swelling-sublime, thine eye o'ersees : 

The founder of illustrious fame 

Bade the neighboring city bear 

The mountain's kindred name : 

Its honors to the gazing crowd 

Did the herald's voice proclaim, 

In him, who, graced with conquest proud, 

In chariots winning fresh renown, 

Wears now the Pythian crown., 



622A.C.] PINDAR. 129 

II. 3. 

The ocean-faring men, 

"When first they spread the sail, 

Hope the favoring wind may blow; 

Conceiving auspice then 

That the same happy gale 

Shall speed their voyage back athwart the main, 

Safe-passing to and fro: 

So my prophetic strain, 

From these auspicious deeds, 

Augurs ^Etna's future fame 

In crowns and conquering steeds, 

And harp'd in banquets a melodious name. 

Delian and Patarsean kingl 

Phoebus! that lovest Castalia's fount, 

Plowing round Parnassus' mount, 

Hear what now I sing: 

Lay it within thy soul to distant time: 

And let Sicilia's clime, 

A3 now, with men heroic spring. 

III. 1. 
For from the gods descend 

All high designs, that here on earth 
Point the virtues to their end: 
The wise of thought, the strong of hand, 
The eloquent of tongue, 
Not from ourselves are sprung, 
But from a secret and divine command 
Are usher'd into birth. 

Now, while the hope within me stirs, to praise 
That man of victory, 
While in my poising grasp I raise 
The brass-tipp'd javelin high : 
Let it not wide-starting stray; 
But speeding on its way 
Far overleap each rival's cast : 
Time! let the future, as the past, 
felicity bestow, 

And bid the source of bounty flow, 
And sickness in oblivion lay. 

III. 2. 
In memory's blazon'd roll 
Shall rise the struggle of the battle-hour ; 
When fought the gods on Hiero's side: 
And firm in fortitude of soul, 
He cropp'd, with Gelo, glory's flower; i 
Gathering o'er every Greek renown, 
And winning wealthy empire's gorgeous crown : 
'Twas then a mighty man appeal'd 
, To his high will, and sooth'd with friendly name 
Though with delaying step he came 
Like Philoctetes, to the field: 
9 



130 PINDAR. [Lect.V. 

'Tis sung in ancient lore, 

While Philoctetes nursed his rankling wound, 

Heroes divine that archer found, 

And drew from Lemnos' shore. 

III. 3. 

By him Troy-towers should fall from high 

And heap the dusty soil; 

And thus should end the Grecians' toil; 

Though faintly bow'd with his disabling wound 

Faltering he trod the ground; 

For it was written thus in Destiny. 

May the healing god appear 

To Hiero, onwards as the moments creep, 

Lull his grief and pain to sleep ; 

Bid speed the wishes of his soul ; 

And his frame from sickness rear. 

Muse again my voice obey : 

This strain for Hiero's chariot-victory won, 

Sing to Dinomenes the son: 

Not with averted ear 

Shall he a father's triumph hear : 

Come then; for him that shall o'er iEtna sway, 

Meditate the pleasing lay. 

IV. 1. 

That city founded strong 

In liberty divine, 

Measured by the Spartan line, 

Has Hiero 'stablish'd for his heritage : 

To whose firm-planted colony belong 

Their mother-country's laws, 

From many a distant age: 

The Dorian race, that draws 

From Pamphylus and th' Heraclidae old 

The blood that circles in its veins, 

Dwelling beneath Taygetus' high hills, 

In wise ^Egimius' statutes firm remains, 

Fix'd to their great forefathers' will : 

They, by high Fortune led, 

Vast Pindus' ridgy head 

O'erpass'd, and in Amyclas held their seat : 

And the twin-brothers near, 

In neighboring Argos rode 

On snowy coursers fleet; 

"Whose glory flourishing in blossom, shoVd 

While firm they couch'd the spear. 

IV. 2. 

Jovel grant that such renown 

Be theirs, the people and the kings 

Dwelling by clear Amena's springs : 



522A.C] PINDAR. 131 

The laws and liberties, whose fame has hung 

On every human tongue, 

These let them judge themselves, and know them for their own. 

Guide to virtue ! train'd by thee 

Let this thy son his people turn again 

To concord's peaceful ways ; 

Bound till his silver-hair'd decline of days 

In mutual order's chain. 

Father ! I pray thee give the nod of Fate : 

Let the Phoenician rest at peace 

Within his turret; let the Tuscan shout 

Of yelling battle cease ; 

"Who saw at Cuma late 

Their navy's wreck and rout. 

IV. 3. 

That leader of the Syracusan host 

With gallies swiftly -rushing them pursued ; 

And they his onset rued: 

When on the Cuman coast 

We dash'd their youth in gulphy waves below, 

And rescued Greece from heavy servitude. 

My strain might grasp the Salaminian day 

When Athens fray'd the Persian foe ; 

And glory should her act repay: 

Let Sparta tell 

How, at Cithseron's foot the Medians fell, 

And cast their crooked bows away: 

But first my harp should sound the lay 

Of the banks of Himera's stream, 

Whose waters limpid flow: 

Dinomenes' brave sons absorb my theme, 

Whose valor quell'd the Punic foe. 

V. 1. 

The seasonable speech 

Grasping in narrow space the sum of things, 

Draws less the biting obloquy 

Of man's invidious tongue ; 

But swoll'n satiety 

Fastidious loathing brings, 

The hearer's thoughts quick soar beyond its reach 

And fame sheds secret gall 

In citizens with envy stung 

At others' noble deeds: 

Yet better envy, than the tear let fall 

By pity o'er the ills corruption breeds : 

Then pass not virtue by; 

In steady justice bold 

The nation's ruddy hold; 

Govern'd and guided still; 

And shape thy tongue and will 

On the forge of verity. 



132 PINDAR. [Leot.V. 

Y. 2. 

The lighest word that falls from thee, oh king! 

Becomes a mighty and momentous thing: 

O'er many placed, as arbiter on high, 

Many thy goings •watchful see ; 

Thy ways on every side 

A host of faithful witnesses descry: 

Then let thy liberal temper be thy guide: 

If ever to thine ear 

Fame's softest whisper yet was dear, 

Stint not thy bounty's flowing tide; 

Stand at the helm of state: full to the gale 

Spread thy wide-gathering sail. 

Friend! let not plausive avarice spread 

Its lures to tempt thee from the path of fame : 

For know, the glory of a name 

Follows the mighty dead. 

y. 3. 

Praise lights the beaten road 

Which the departed trod, 

And gilds the speaker's tongue, the poet's lays; 

Not Croesus' virtue mild decays; 

But hateful Fame shall ever cling 

To Phalaris, him merciless of mind, 

"Who in the brazen bull's rebellowing void 

Burn'd with the flame his kind: 

Never for him the social roof shall ring 

"With sounds of harps in descant sweet : 

Ne'er has his name employ'd 

The tongue of boys, that prattling tales repeat : 

The virtuous deed 

In honor's highest meed: 

That deed's recorded fame 

Next touches with delight the human ear: 

The man that thus shall act and hear, 

May the crown of glory claim. 

To this splendid ode we add the following extracts from other odes, 
and shall then close our notice of this great poet with a fragment on see- 
ing the sun under an eclipse : 



FROM THE SECOND OLYMPIC. 

FUTURE PUNISHMENT AND REWARD. 

The deeds that stubborn mortals do 

In this disordered nook of Jove's domain, 

All find their meed, and there's a judge below 
Whose hateful doom inflicts th' inevitable pain. 



522A.C.] PINDAR. 133 

O'er the Good, soft suns awhile, 

Through the mild day, the night serene, 
Alike with cloudless lustre smile, 

Tempering all the tranquil scene. 
Their's is 'leisure; vex not they 
Stubborn soil or watery way, 
To wring from toil want's worthless bread: 
No ills they know, nor tears they shed, 
But with the glorious gods below 
Ages of peace contented share: 
Meanwhile the Bad, in bitterest woe, 
Eye-startling tasks, and endless tortures bear. 

<► 
All, whose steadfast virtue thrice 

Each side the grave unchanged hath stood, 
Still unseduced, unstained with vice, — 

They, by Jove's mysterious road, 
Pass to Saturn's realm of rest, 
Happy isle, that holds the Blest; 
Where sea-born breezes gently blow 
N O'er blooms of gold that round them glow, 
Which nature boon from stream or strand 
Or goodly tree profusely showers ; § 

Whence pluck they many a fragrant band, 
And braid their locks with never-fading flowers. 



FROM THE FOURTEENTH OLYMPIC. 

TO THE ORCHOMENIAN GRACES, IN BEHALF OF THE BOY ASOPHICHUS. 

ye, ordained by lot to dwell 

Where Cephisian waters well; 

And hold your fair retreat 

Mid herds of coursers beautiful and fleet; 

Renowned queens, that take your rest 

In Orchomenus the blest, 

Guarding with ever wakeful eye 

The Minyans' high-born progeny ; 

To you my votive strains belong; 

List, Graces, to your suppliant's song. 

For all delightful things below, 

All sweet, to you their being owe; 

And at your hand their blessings share 

The wise, the splendid, and the fair. 

Nor without the holy Graces, 
The gods, in those supernal places, 
Their dances or their banquets rule; 
Dispensers they of all above 
Throughout the glorious court of Jove : 
Where each has plac'd her sacred stool 



134 PINDAR. [Lect. V. 

By the golden-bow'd Apollo, 

"Whom in his harpings clear they follow; 

And the high majestic state 

Of their Eternal Father venerate. 

Daughters of heav'n ; — Aglaia, thou 
Darting splendors from thy brow; 
"With musical Euphrosyne, — 
Be present. Nor less call I thee, 
Tuneful Thalia, to look down 
On this joyous rout, and own 
Me their bard, who lead along, 
For Asophichus, the throng 
» Tripping light to Lydian song ; 
And Minya for thy sake proclaim 
Conqueress in the Olympic game. 

"Waft, Echo, now, thy wing divine 
To the black dome of Proserpine; 
And marking Cleodamus there, 
Tell the glad tidings ; — how his son, 
For him, hath crown'd his youthful hah' 
"With plumes in Pisa's valley won. 



FROM THE THIRD NEMEAN. 

INNATE WORTH. 

Great is the power of inbred nobleness : 
But he, that all he hath to schooling owes, 
A shallow wight obscure, 
Plants not his step secure ; 
Feeding vain thoughts on phantoms numberless, 
Of genuine excellence mere outward shows. 

In Phillyra's house, a flaxen boy, 
Achilles oft in rapturous joy 
His feats of strength essay'd. 
Aloof, like wind, his little javelin flew ; 
The Hon and the brindled boar he slew, 
Then homeward to old Chiron drew 
Their panting carcasses. 
This, when six years had fled. 
And all the after time 
Of his rejoicing prime, 
It was to Dian and the blue-eyed maid, 
A wonder how he brought to ground 
The stag without or toils or hound : 
So fleet of foot was he. 



622A.C.] PINDAR. 135 

FROM THE EIGHTH NEMEAN. 

A PRAYER FOR A GUILELESS AND BENEVOLENT DISPOSITION. 

Hateful of old the glozing plea, 
With bland imposture at his side, 
Still meditating guile ; 
Fill'd 'with reproaches vile; 
Who pulls the splendid down, 
And bids th' obscure in fest'ring glory shine. 

Such temper far remove, Father Jove, from me. 
The simple paths of life be mine ; 
That when this being I resign, 
I to my children may bequeath 
A name they shall not blush to hear. 
Others for gold the vow may breathe, 
Or lands that see no limit near : 
But fain would I live out my days, 
Beloved by those with whom they're past, 
In mine own city, till at last 
In earth my limbs are clad; 
Still praising what is worthy praise, 
But scatt'ring censure on the bad. 
For virtue by the wise and just 
Exalted, grows up like a tree, 
That springeth from the dust, 
And by the green dews fed, 
Doth raise aloft her head, 
And in the blithe air waves her branches free. 

A FRAGMENT. 

TO THE SUN UNDER AN ECLIPSE. 

Beam of the sun, heaven-watcher, thou whose glance 
Lights far and wide, unveil to me, unveil 
Thy brow, that once again mine eye may hail 

The lustre of thy cloudless countenance. 

Surpassing star ! why thus at noon of day 

Withdrawing, would'st thou mar 

Man's stalwart strength, and bar 
With dark obstruction Wisdom's winding way ? 

Lo! on thy chariot-track 

Hangs midnight pitchy-black; 

While thou, from out thine ancient path afar, 

Hurriest thy belated car. 



13G PINDAR. [LectV. 

But thee, by mightiest Jove, do I implore — 

O'er Thebes thy fleet steeds' flight 

To rein, -with presage bright 
Of plenteousness and peace forevermore. 

Fountain of Light ! — venerated Power ! — 

To all of earthly line 

A wonder and a sign, 
"What terror threatenest thou at this dread hour ? 

Doom of battle dost thou bring; 
Or cankerous blight, fruit-withering; 
Or crushing snow showers' giant weight; 
Or factions, shatterers of the State : 

Or breaching seas poured o'er the plain; 
Or frost that fettereth land and spring ; 
Or summer dank, whose drenching wing 

Droops heavily with rain? 

Such fate, portendeth such, thy gloomy brow ? 

Or, deluging beneath the imprison'd deep, 
This earth once more, man's infant race wilt thou, 

Afresh from off the face of nature sweep ? 



tntm fyt fixity. 



ONOMACRITUS. — BACCHYLIDES. — EMPEDOCLES. — EUENUS. — ARI- 

PHRON.— SIMMIAS.— CALLISTRATUS.— PLATO.— ARISTOTLE.— 

MNASALCUS.— HYBRIAS.— HERMESIANAX.— PERSES. 



ONOMACRITUS, the next poet to he noticed, occupies an interesting 
position in the history of the early Greek religious poetry. He was 
a native of Athens, and was horn in that city 540 A.C. His profession 
was that of a priest and soothsayer ; and by virtue of his sacred office he 
had access to the secret archives of the city, and there pretended to dis- 
cover some oracular verses, which he attributed to Orpheus and Musasus 
These verses he was in the habit of reciting in the public assemblies of 
the people for pecuniary emoluments, and by this means he acquired 
great wealth. This practice he continued for a number of years ; and as 
the tyrant Hipparchus was his personal friend, his intimacy with royalty, 
and his identity with the priestly office, long shielded him from public 
exposure. 

At length, however, Lasus of Hermione, the dithyrambic poet, — a 
philosopher, and a man of great boldness and spirit, publicly charged 
him with having forged these verses, and with issuing them to the people, 
to effect his own sordid and selfish purposes. As this charge was made 
by a citizen of exalted position and commanding character, the king was 
compelled to take notice of it ; and Onomacritus was accordingly brought 
to trial, condemned, and sentenced to perpetual banishment. 

On being banished from Athens, Onomacritus retired into Thessaly, and 
there, through his artful and insinuating conduct and manners, he soon 
raised himself to a position of so much importance tlfat, when the Thessa- 
lians invited Xerxes, king of Persia, to invade and subjugate Greece, he 
formed one of the commissioners sent to the Persian court for that purpose. 
He is said to have stimulated the king to that undertaking, by reciting to 
him all the ancient oracles which seemed to favor the attempt, and sup- 
pressing those of an opposite tendency. The embassy succeeded, and 
Onomacritus having thus, as he supposed, wreaked his vengeance upon 
his native country, returned to Thessaly ; but there, soon after, sunk into 



138 ONOMACRITUS. [Lect. VI. 

that contempt and final obscurity, which the "baseness of his conduct had 
so richly merited. The period of his death, according to Herodotus, 
was 485 A.C. ; but" no particulars of his life, after the Persian embassy, 
have been preserved. 

Many disquisitions have been written for the purpose of determining 
whether Onomacritus was, or was not, the author of the poems which he 
ascribed to Orpheus and Musseus. Without entering more particularly 
into this vexed question, we may here remark that, according to Herodo- 
tus, he was an utterer of ancient oracles, however preserved, and that he 
had made a collection and arrangement of the oracles ascribed to Musaeus. 
And this is entirely in keeping with the literary character of the age in 
which he lived, and with other traditions respecting Onomacritus him- 
self; as, for instance, that he made interpolations in Homer as well as 
in Musseus, and that he was the real author of some of the poems which 
went under the name of Orpheus. 

It is evident, however, that his literary character must be regarded as 
quite subordinate to his religious position ; and that he was not a poet 
who cultivated the art for its own sake, but a priest, who availed himself 
of the ancient religious poems for the support of the worship to which he 
was attached. Of what character that worship was, may be seen from 
the statement of Pausanias, that ' Onomacritus, taking from Homer the 
name of the Titans, established orgies to Dionysus, and represented in 
his poems the Titans as the authors of the sufferings of Dionysus.' 
Here we have the great Orphic myth of Dionysus Zagreus, whose worship, 
it thus seems, was either established or re-arranged by Onomacritus, 
who must, therefore, be regarded as one of the chief leaders of the Or- 
phic theology, and the Orphic societies. 

The poem which Onomacritus pretended had been written by Orpheus, 
was a description of the Argonautic Expedition. That he fabricated the 
work himself there can be no doubt ; and the probability is that he was 
in possession of certain genuine Orphic fragments, which he used as the 
ground-work of his fabrication. The Argonautics, in their antique air, 
resemble the first simple outline of an epic poem — the first rough attempt 
to record in verse an heroic action. The poem, so far as the conduct 
of the fable is concerned, is almost entirely destitute of poetic art : it is 
a mere diary of adventures, without complicated interest, and without the 
intricate display of powerful passion. The narration is conducted in the 
person of Orpheus himself, naturally and unambitiously ; and is pleasing 
from its artlessness. The poet does little more than describe — but he 
describes forcibly ; and has happily imitated the strong and grand sim- 
plicity of a rude bard. The cave of Chiron is a find, romantic picture ; 
and the sudden appearance of the king of Oolchis, in his chariot, with his 
two daughters, is conceived with uncommon spirit and splendor of fancy. 

"What part Onomacritus may have taken in the construction of the 



520A.C.] ONOMACRITUS. 139 

hymns interspersed throughout the poem, is very uncertain ; but, as 
hymns are among the first essays of barbarous poetry, and are more 
easily perpetuated than any other, from the sacredness and frequency of 
religious rites, it is very probable that part of these hymns belong' to the 
genuine Orphic era. Certainly, their style is still more ancient than that 
of the Argonautics. The shorter ones are mere invocations, made up of 
titular attributes, and adapted to certain sacrificial ceremonies. Some 
passages among the Orphic fragments embrace a sublime and mystical 
theology, which seem connected with a period, when the unity of the 
object of worship was still kept in view, through all its divisions and 
ramifications, among the parts of nature. Others are supposed to have 
been interpolated by the pious fraud of Jewish or Christian theologians. 
The poems on stones are curious monuments of an old Greek superstition, 
—common, also, with the Arabians, — which ascribes to gems certain 
healing virtues and magical properties. Their cast is not so ancient as 
that of the other poems. 

FROM THE ARGONAUTICS' 

VISIT TO THE ARGONAUTS CAVE OF CHIRON. 

Then with a whistling breeze did Juno fill the sail, 

And Argo, self-impell'd, shot swift before the gale. 

The kings with nerve and heart the oar unwearied plied; 

Plough'd by the keel, foam'd white th' immeasurable tide. 

But when from Ocean's streams the sacred dawn appear'd, 

And morning's pleasant light both Gods and mortals cheer'd, 

Then, from the shore, the rocks and windy summits high 

Of wood-topt Pelion rear'd their beacon midst the sky. 

The helm, with both his hands, the pilot Tiphys held ; 

The vessel cut the wave, with quiet course impell'd ; 

Then swift they near'd the shore; the wooden ladder cast, 

And forth the heroes leap'd, relieved from labors past. 

Then to the circling throng the horseman Peleus cried ; 

'Mark, friends! yon shadowing crag, midway the mountain side: 

There Chiron dwells, most just of all the Centaur race, 

That haunt high Pelion's top; a cave his dwelling-place. 

He there awards the right, or heals the body's pains; 

And chaunts to neighboring tribes, oracular, his strains. 

To Phoebus' chorded harp the laws, in wisdom, sings, 

Or Hermes' hollow lute, of shell sonorous, strings ; 

And therefore Thetis came, with silver feet, to trace 

High Pelion's waving woods, my babe in her embrace ; 

And here to Chiron's hands the new-born infant brought, 

To cherish with a father's eye, and rear with prudent thought. 

Indulge my longing, friends ! with me the cavern tread ; 

To mark how fares my boy ; how gifted, and how bred.' 

He trod the beaten path; we fohWd where he led. 

We enter'd straight a grot, of gloomy twilight shade ; 

There, on a lonely couch, the centaur huge was laid. 



140 'ONOMACRITUS. [Lect. VL 

At length unmeasured stretch'd, his rapid legs were thrown, 

And, shod with horny hoofs, reclin'd upon the stone. 

The boy Achilles stood, erect, beside the sire ; 

And smote with pliant hand the spirit-soothing lyre. 

But when the Centaur saw the noble kings appear, 

He rose with courteous art, and kiss'd, and brought them dainty cheer. 

The wine in beakers served, the branchy couches spread 

With scatter'd leaves, and placed each guest upon his bed. 

In dishes rude the flesh of boars and stags bestow'd ; 

While draughts of luscious wine in equal measure flow'd. 

But now, when food and drink had satisfied the heart, 

With loud, applauding hands they urged my minstrel's art: 

That I, in contest match'd against the Centaur sire, 

Should, to some wide-famed strain, attune the wringing lyre. 

But I, averse, forbore in contest to engage, 

And blush'd, that youth should vie with more experienced age. 

Till Chiron joined the wish, himself prepared to sing ; 

And forced me to contend, reluctant, on the string. 

Achilles stretch'd his hand, and gave the beauteous shell, 

Which Chiron took, and sang the Centaur combat fell : 

How them the Lapithae for daring outrage slew; 

How, mad with strength of wine, 'gainst Hercules they flew; 

And him, on Pholoe's mount, to stubborn conflict drew. 

I next the lute received, of echo sweet and shrill, 

And bade my breathing lips their honor 'd song distiL 

In dark and mystic hymn I sang of Chaos old, 

How the disparted elements in round alternate roll'd; 

Heaven fiow'd through boundless space ; and earth her teeming train 

Fed from her ample breast, and deep in whirlpools heaved the main. 

I sang of elder Love, who, self-sufficing, wrought 

Creation's differing forms with many-counsell'd thought. 

Of baneful Saturn next ; and how the heaven above 

Fell with its regal sway to thunder -launching Jove. 

I sang the younger gods, whence rose their various birth, 

How spread their sep'rate powers through sea, and air, and earth. 

Of Brimus and of Bacchus last, and giants' mystic fame, 

And whence man's weaker race arose, of many-nation'd name. 

Through winding cavities, that scoop'd the rocky cell, 

With tone sonorous thrill'd my sweetly vocal shell. 

High Pelion's mountain heads, and woody valleys round, 

And all his lofty oaks remurmur'd to the sound. 

His oaks uprooted rush, and all tumultuous wave 

Around the darken'd mouth of Chiron's hollow cave. 

The rocks re-echo shrill ; the beasts of forest wild 

Stand at the cavern's mouth, in listening trance beguiled: 

The birds surround the den ; and, as in weary rest, 

They drop their fluttering wings, forgetful of the nest, 

Amazed the Centaur saw ; his clapping hands he beat ; 

And stamp'd in ecstacy the rock with hoof'd and horny feet. 

When Tiphys threads the cave, and bids the Minyan train 

To hurry swift on board ; and thus I ceased my strain. 

The Argonauts leap'd up in haste, and snatch'd their arms again. 



620A.C.] ONOMACRITUS. 141 

Then Peleus to his breast the boy, embracing, rears ; 

Kissing his head, and beauteous eyes, and smiling through his tears : 

Achilles so was soothed; and, as I left the cave, 

A leopard's spotted skin, in pledge, the Centaur gave. 

Forth from the den we sprang, down from the mountain high ; 

The aged Centaur spread his raised hands toVrds the sky: 

And call'd on all the gods a safe return to give, 

That famed in ages, yet unborn, the youthful kings might live. 

Descending to the shore, we climb'd the bark again; 

Each press'd his former bench, and lash'd with oar the main ; 

Huge Pelion's mountain swift receded from our view, 

Aii o'ot vast ocean's green expanse the foam white-chafing flew. 



FROM THE ORPHIC REMAINS. 

I. 

One self- existent lives : created things 

Arise from him ; and he is all in all. 

No mortal sight may see him; yet himself 

Sees all that live. He out of good can bring 

Evil to men : dread battle ; tearful woes ; 

He, and no other. Open to thy sight 

Were all the chain of things, could'st thou behold 

The Godhead, ere as yet he stepp'd on earth. 

My son ! I will display before thine eyes. 

His footsteps, and his mighty hand of power. 

Himself I cannot see. The rest is veil'd 

In clouds; and tenfold darkness intercepts 

His presence. None discerns the Lord of men, 

But he, the sole-begotten, of the tribe 

Of old Chaldseans: he, to whom was known 

The path of stars, and how the moving sphere 

Rolls round this earth, in equal circle framed, 

Self-balanced on her centre. 'Tis the God, 

Who rules the breathing winds, that sweep around 

The vault of air, and round the flowing swell 

Of the deep, watery element ; and shows 

Forth, from on high, the glittering strength of flame. 

Himself, above the firmament's broad arch, 

Sits, on a throne of gold : the round earth lies 

Under his feet. He stretches his right hand 

To th' uttermost bounds of ocean, and the root 

Of mountains trembles at his touch ; nor stands 

Before his mighty power. For he, alone, 

All-heavenly is, and all terrestrial things 

Are wrought by him. First, midst, and last, he holds 

With his omniscient grasp. So speaks the lore 

Of ancient wisdom : so the man who sprang 

Forth from the cradling waters, speaks : who took 

The double tables of the law from God ; 

Other to speak, were impious. Every limb 

I tremble, and my spirit quakes within. 



142 ONOMACRITUS. [Lect. VI. 

ii. 
Jove is tlie first and last ; who th' infant thunder hurl'd ; 
Jove is the head and midst ; the framer of the world, 
Jove is a male; a nymph of bloom immortal Jove: 
Jove is the base of earth, and starry heaven above. 
Jove is the breath of all ; the force of quenchless flame ; 
The root of ocean Jove; the sun and moon the same. 
Jove is the king, the sire, whence generation sprang ; 
One strength, one Demon, great, on whom all beings hang; 
His regal body grasps the vast material round ; 
There fire, earth, air, and wave, and day, and night are found; 
"Wisdom, first maker, there, and joy -prolific Love ; 
All these concentering fill the mighty frame of Jove. 



in. 
Hear me, thou ! forever whirling round the rolling Heavens on high ! 
Thy far-travelling orb of sjjlendor, midst the whirlpools of the sky 1 
Hear, effulgent Jove, and Bacchus ! father both of earth and sea ! 
Sun all-various ! golden-beaming I all things teeming out of thee ! 



TO THE MOON. 

FROM THE HYMNS. 

Heavenly Selene ! goddess queen ! that shedd'st abroad thy light ! 
Bull-horned moon ! air-habiting ! thou wanderer through the night ! 
Moon, bearer of the nightly torch ! thou star-encircled maid ! 
Female, at once, and male the same ; still fresh, and still decay'd ! 
Thou! that in thy steeds delightest, as they whirl thee through the sky! 
Clothed in brigthness ! mighty mother of the rapid years that fly ! 
Fruit-dispenser ! amber-visaged ! melancholy, yet serene ! 
All-beholding ! sleep-enamor'd ! still with trooping planets seen ! 
Quiet-loving ! who in pleasaunce, and in plenty takes delight ! 
Joy-diffusing I fruit-maturing ! sparkling ornament of night ! 
Swiftly-pacing ! ample-vested ! star -bright ! all-divining maid ! 
Come benignant ! come spontaneous ! with thy starry sheen array'd ! 
Sweetly-shining ! save us, virgin ! give thy holy suppliants aid ! 



FROM THE LITHICS. 

Th' immortal Gods will view thee with delight, 
If thou should'st hold the agate, branching bright 
"With veins, like many a tree, that rears its head 
In some fair garden, with thick boughs bespread : 
As the tree-agate, thus to mortals known, 
In part a branchy wood ; in part a stone. 
If on thy oxen's horns this gem be bound, 
When with the cleaving share they turn the ground: 



500A.C.] BACCHYLIDES. 143 

Or on th' unwearied ploughman's shoulder borne, 
Then shall thy furrows spring with thickening corn : 
Full-bosom'd Ceres, with the wheaten crown, 
Shall lean from Heaven, and scatter harvests down. 

Bacchylides, another of the distinguished lyric poets of this period, was 
a native of the island of Ceos, and was a nephew as well as fellow- 
townsman of the celebrated Simonides, of whom we have already spoken. 
Eusebius places his birth in 450 A. C. ; but this must evidently be a mis- 
take, as Hiero of Syracuse, at whose court the poet past many years of 
his life, died in 467 A.C. The probability is, therefore, Bacchylides was 
born about 500 A.C. 

Bacchylides belonged to a family in which, as was so often the ca^e, 
poetry was followed as an hereditary profession. His father is variously 
called Medon, Meidon, and Meidylus ; and his paternal grandfather was 
the athlete Bacchylides. Of his life we have no farther knowledge than 
that he early left his native island, and repaired to the court of Syracuse, 
whither his uncle Simonides had already preceded him. He soon be- 
came a very great favorite of Hiero, who is said to have preferred his 
Pythian odes to those of Pindar. On what principle this preference 
could have been founded it is, however, very difficult to perceive ; for in 
sublimity, the chief characteristic of the Pythian ode, he was incompara- 
bly Pindar's inferior. The probability is, that he was more deferential 
in his conduct, and more obsequious in his disposition. 

The few relics extant of the numerous and various poems of Bacchy- 
lides, exhibit polish, correctness, delicacy, and ornament, but nothing of 
the fire and fervor of Pindar : his excellence was the result of education 
rather than of natural poetic inspiration. The period of his death, and 
the circumstances attending that event, have not been preserved ; but it 
is probable that he passed at Syracuse all the closing years of his life. 
The Koman emperor Julian, so highly estimated the lyrics of Bacchy- 
lides, that he not only kept a copy of them constantly about his person, 
but drew from them rules for the conduct of life. The following speci- 
mens present all the variety which the remains of this poet contain : 

ANACREONTIC. 

The goblet's sweet compulsion moves 
The soften'd mind to melting loves. 
The hope of Venus warms the soul, 
Mingling in Bacchus' gifted bowl; 
And buoyant lifts in lightest air 
The soaring thoughts of human care. 
Who sips the grape, with single blow 
Lays the city's rampire low ; 
Flush'd with the vision of his mind 
He acts the monarch o'er mankind. 



144 BACCHYLIDES. [Lect. VI. 

His bright'ning roofs now gleam on high, 
All burnish'd gold and ivory : 
Corn-freighted ships from Egypt's shore 
Waft to his feet the golden ore : 
Thus, ■while the frenzying draught he sips 
His heart is bounding to his lips. 

PEACE. 

Innumerous are the boons bestowed, 

On man by gracious Peace! 
The flowers of poets honey-tongued, 

And wealth's immense increase. 
Then from the joyous altars 

Unto the gods arise 
The fumes of sheep's and oxen's flesh 

In ruddy sacrifice : 
In crowds to the gymnasium 

The strenuous youth resort, 
Or to the pipe blithe revellers 

Pursue their maddening sport; 
The spider black doth weave his net 

In the iron-handled shield, 
And sharp-set spear aud two-edged sword 

To mouldy canker yield ; 
No longer anywhere is heard 

The trumpet's blazen blare, 
From men's eyes soul-delighting sleep 

At midnight sent to scare ; 
Banquets, heap'd high with food and wine, 

Are spread in every street, 
And songs from youthful companies 

Are sounding strong and sweet. 

ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD. 

Ala3, poor Child! for thee our bosoms swell 
"With grief, tears cannot cure, words may not tell. 

THE HUSBANDMAN'S OFFERING. 

To Zephyr, kindest wind that swells the grain, 
Eudenius consecrates this humble fane ; 
For that he listen'd to his vow and bore 
On his soft wings the rich autumnal store. 

FRAGMENTS. 

I. 
Virtue, placed on high, doth shine 
With a glory all-divine; 
Riches oft alike are shower'd 
On the hero and the coward. 



500A.C.J BACCHYLIDES. 145 

ir. 
Wise-inen now, like those of old, 
Can but tell what others told. 
Full hard it is the hidden door 
Of words unspoken to explore. 

III. 
Here let no fatted oxen be, 
Gold nor purple tapestry : 
But a well-disposed mind; 
But a gentle muse and kind; 
But glad wine, to glad our souls, 
Mantling in Boeotian bowls. 

IV. 
Peaceful wealth, or painful toil, 
Chance of war, or civil broil, 
'Tis not for man's feeble race 
These to shun or those embrace. 
But that all-disposing Fate, 
"Which presides o'er mortal state, 
Where it listeth, casts a shroud 
Of impenetrable cloud. 

"With the death of Bacchylides the class of lyric poets to which he 
belonged ended ; and more than half a century elapsed before Greece 
produced another lyric, or even fugitive poet, whose eminence was suf- 
ficiently great to preserve his name from oblivion. This is attributable 
to various circumstances, the principal of which were the rise and extraor- 
dinary influence of the comic drama, and the all-absorbing power of the 
tragic muse. 

The character of the Athenians was now undergoing a rapid change, 
and that admiration for elevated and heroic conduct, which had so strik- 
ingly distinguished them from the commencement of the contest with the 
Persians, until the close of the Peloponnesian war, and which was the 
constant theme of the lyric poets, was no longer displayed ; and hence 
the entertainments of the theatre, being better suited to their tastes, and 
to their prevailing habits, than were severe and thoughtful compositions, 
the poetic genius of the nation was naturally turned to the comic stage. 
To this subject our attention will be more particularly directed in our 
remarks upon the dramatic poetry of the Greeks. 

Occasionally, however, in the midst of this general absence of lyric 
poetry, out of the tragic drama, a poet arose who had sufficient fire and 
enthusiasm of genius to resist the prevailing sentiment, and to devote 
himself to the more pure and elevated purposes of the muse. To the 
poets of this class belong Empedocles of Agrigentum, Euenus of Paros, 
Ariphron of Sicyon, Simmias of Thebes, and Callistratus of Athens. 
But, unfortunately, very few particulars of their lives are now known, and 
only an occasional fragment of their poetry has been preserved. 

10 



146 EMPEDOCLES. [Lect. VI. 

Empedocles was tlie son of Meton, and was born at Agrigentum in 
Sicily about 455 A.C. The easy circumstances and high rank of his 
family, left him at liberty to devote himself to philosophical studies, for 
which he had, from his youth, evinced a strong predilection. He was of 
a noble and enthusiastic nature, and abandoning the principles of the 
tyrannical government of the rulers of his native city, he manifested his 
zeal in the establishment of political equality, by his magnanimous sup- 
port of the poor, by his inexorable severity in persecuting the overbear- 
ing conduct of the aristocracy, and in his declining the sovereignty when 
it was offered him. 

His brilliant oratory, his penetrating knowledge of nature and of cir- 
cumstances, and the reputation of his marvellous powers, which he had 
acquired by curing diseases, by his successful exertion in removing 
marshy districts, averting epidemics and obnoxious winds, spread a lus- 
tre around his name, which induced Timagus and other historians to men- 
tion him frequently as the c averter and controller of storms.' The cir- 
cumstances attending his death are variously given. Heraclides Pon- 
ticus represents him as having been removed from the earth, like a divine 
being; and another account makes him perish in the flames of Mount 
iEtna. Aristotle, however, whose authority cannot be contested, asserts 
that he spent a number of the closing years of his life in Peloponnesus, 
and there eventually died in the sixtieth year of his age. 

Empedocles was an enthusiast, both in philosophy and in poetry ; and 
his great poem upon Nature bears the marks of this enthusiasm, both in 
its epic language and the nature of its contents. At the beginning of it 
he said, that faith and divine will had decreed that, if one of the gods 
should be betrayed into defiling his hands with blood, he should be con- 
demned to wander about for thirty thousand years, far removed from the 
immortals. He then described himself to have been exiled from heaven, 
for having engaged in deadly conflict, and committing murder. As, 
therefore, since the heroic times of Greece, a fugitive wanderer required 
an expiation and purification ; so a god ejected from heaven, and con- 
demned to appear in the likeness of a man, required some purification 
that might enable him to assume his original high estate. This purifica- 
tion was supposed to be in part accomplished by the lofty contemplations 
of the poem, which was hence — either wholly or in part — called a song 
of expiation. 

According to the idea of the transmigration of souls, Empedocles sup- 
posed that, since his exile from heaven, he had been a shrub, a fish, a 
bird, a boy, and a girl. For the present, ' the powers which conduct 
souls' had borne him to the dark cavern of the earth ; and from hence 
the return to divine honors was open to him, as to seers and poets, and 
other benefactors of mankind. The great doctrine, that Love is the 
power which formed the world, was probably announced to him by the 



460A.C] EUENUS. 147 

Muse whom he invoked, as the secret by the contemplation of which he 
was to emancipate himself from all the baleful effects of Discord. 

Besides his great poem on Nature, Empedocles was the author of 
many minor poetic performances, of which two epigrams still remain, 
both of which are distinguished by the use of the rhetorical figure called 
Paronomasia or Pun. One of these follows, and we introduce it not 
more on account of the celebrity of the author, than as an ancient speci- 
men of this sort of writing. The pun consists in the derivation of the 
name Pausanias — a portion only, however, of the double meaning of which 
has been preserved in the translation : 

EPITAPH ON A PHYSICIAN. 

JPawsanias — not so named without a cause, » 

As one who oft has given to pain a pause, — 

Blest son of Esculapius, good and wise, 

Here, in his native Gela, buried lies; 

Who many a wretch once rescued by his charms. 

From dark Persephone's constraining arms. 

Euenus, or Evenus, was a native of the island of Paros, and was born 
about 460 A.C. Plato frequently alludes to him, and sometimes ironic- 
ally, as at once a sophist or philosopher, and a poet. He was the 
instructor of Socrates in poetry, a statement which receives some coun- 
tenance from a passage in Plato, from which it may also be inferred that 
he was alive at the time of Socrates' death, but at such an advanced age 
that he was likely soon to follow him. 

Euenus' poetry was gnomic, that is, it formed the vehicle for ex- 
pressing philosophical maxims and opinions. There were other writers 
of the name of Euenus; but as the first six of the epigrams in the 
Anthology are of the gnomic character, they may be with tolerable cer- 
tainty ascribed to this author. From these epigams we present the fol- 
lowing as specimens : — 

THE VINE AND THE GOAT. 

Though thou should'st gnaw me to the root, 
Destructive goat ! Enough of fruit 
I bear, betwixt thy horns to shed, 
When to the altar thou art led. 

THE SWALLOW AND THE GRASSHOPPER. 

Attic Maiden, breathing still 

Of the fragrant flowers that blow 
On Hymettus' purpled hill, 

Whence the streams of honey flow, 



148 ABIPHRON. [Lect.YL 

Wherefore thus a captive bear 
To your nest a grasshopper ? 

IJoisy prattler, cease to do 

To your fellow-prattler wrong; 
Kind should not its kind pursue, — 

Least of all the heirs of song. 
Prattler seek some other food 
For your noisy, prattling brood. 

Both are ever on the wing, 

Wanderers both in foreign bowers, 
Both succeed the parting Spring, 

Both depart with Summer hours, 
— Those who love the minstrel's lay, 
Should not on each other prey. 



CONTRADICTION. 

In contradiction, wrong or right, 

Do many place their sole delight. 

If right, 'tis well — if wrong, why so?— 

But contradict whate'er you do. 

Such reasoners deserve, I hold, 

No argument save that of old, — 

• You say 'tis black — / say 'tis white — 

And so, good sir, you're answered quite.' 

Far different is the aspect seen 

Of modest Wisdom's quiet mien — 

Patient and soon to be persuaded, 

When argument by Jruth is aided. 

Ariphron was a native of Sicyon, and is supposed to have been born 
about 450 A.C. Of the history of his life antiquity affords us no inci- 
dents ; and of his poetry nothing now remains to us but the following 
beautiful poem to health, which was preserved by Athenasus with the 
greatest care. The poem was an object of universal admiration among 
the ancients, and was often quoted by them, — particularly by Lucian and 
Maximus Tyrius. Its intrinsic merit warrants all the attention which it 
has received. Dr. Johnson, in allusion to this poem, remarks, * There is 
among the fragments of the Greek poets a short hymn to Health, in 
which her power of exalting the happiness of life, of heightening the gifts 
of fortune, and adding enjoyment to possession, is inculcated with so 
much truth and beauty, that no one who has ever languished under the 
discomforts and infirmities of a lingering disease, can read it without feel- 
ing the images dance in his heart, and adding, from his own experience, 
new vigor to the wish, and new colors to the picture. The particular 
occasion of this little composition is not known, but it is probable that 
the author had been sick, and, in the first rapture of returning vigor, thus 
addressed the goddess :' 



440A.C.] SIMMIAS. 149 

TO HEALTH. 

Health, brightest of the blest, do thou 

To my poor hearth descend I 
For what of life kind heaven allow, 

Be thou my guest and friend! 
For every joy that fortune brings, 
All that from wealth or children springs, 
From courtly show or sovereign sway, 
Lifting to gods us things of clay, 
From love, or love's enchanting wiles, 
From labor's pause, or pleasure's smiles, — 
With thee they blossom, Health divine; 
Their spring, their beauty, all is thine ; 
And none — save thou thy smile bestow — 
May taste of happiness below. 

Simmias, another philosophic poet of this period, was a native of 
Thebes, and was born about 440 A.C. He early devoted himself to phi- 
losophical studies, following, at first, the doctrines of Pythagoras ; but 
he afterwards became the disciple and intimate friend of Socrates, and 
was present at his death, having come from Thebes, with his brother 
Cebes, bringing with him a large sum of money, to assist in liberating 
Socrates from the sentence which had been pronounced against him. At 
this time both Simmias and his brother were comparatively young men, 
and yet the great respect in which they were held induced Plato to in- 
troduce them as the principal speakers, besides Socrates himself, in the 
Phsedon ; and the skill with which they argue, and the respect and affec- 
tion with which Socrates treats them, prove the general esteem in which 
they were held, and the high place they occupied among the disciples of 
their great teacher. 

The poetry of Simmias consisted of a few brief effusions in the form 
of epitaphs and epigrams ; the merit of which is such as to have pre- 
served them from oblivion, while his dialogues, twenty-three in number, 
and other philosophical writings have all perished. The following epitaph 
on Sophocles is as delicate in thought and beautiful in expression as so 
brief a composition can well he : 



ON SOPHOCLES. 

"Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a shade 
Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid. 
Sweet ivy, lend thine aid, and intertwine 
With blushing roses and the clustering vine : 
Thus shall your lasting leaves, with beauties hung, 
Prove grateful emblems of the lays he sung. 



150 CALLISTRATUS. [Lect. VI. 

Callistratus, the poet to whom our remarks have now brought us down, 
was a native of Athens, and was born in that city 420 A.C. Of his 
family we have no farther knowledge than that he was honorably con- 
nected ; and of the history of his poetic career all we know is that he 
was the author of a national ode of such extraordinary merit and popu- 
larity as to have been often ascribed to Alcaeus, one of the contemporaries 
of Sappho. The incident, however, which the ode celebrates, transpired 
long after Alcseus' death, and consequently he could have had no connec- 
tion with its production. 

The ode itself is a convivial song ; and from the iterations by which it 
is distinguished, and of which it is the earliest sample in the Greek lan- 
guage, we are inclined to believe that in the rehearsal or singing of it, 
whether in the theatres or at other places of public entertainment, the 
whole company present joined. The subject of the ode was the triumph of 
Harmodius and Aristogiton over the Pisistratidse, and with this event the 
name of Callistratus remains hallowed in our memories. The Athenians 
held those heroes in such veneration, and regarded their great and heroic 
deed with such admiration, that they not only erected two splendid 
statues to their memory, but would not, thenceforth, permit any Athenian 
child to bear either of their names. 

The statues erected to the memory of Harmodius and Aristogiton 
were carried away by Xerxes into Persia, when that prince took and de- 
stroyed Athens ; but they were afterwards returned by Alexander the 
Great, and replaced upon their original pedestals. Of the various trans- 
lations of this ode with which we are familiar, we prefer the following : — 



ODE TO HARMODIUS. 

Id myrtle my sword will I wreathe, 
Like our patriots the noble and brave, 

"Who devoted the tyrant to death, 
And to Athens equality gave. 

Loved Harmodius, thou never shalt die ! 

The poets exultingly tell, 
That thine is the fulness of joy, 

Where Achilles and Diomed dwell. 

In myrtle my sword will I wreathe, 
Like our patriots the noble and brave, 

"Who devoted Hipparchus to death, 
And buried his pride in the grave. 

At the altar the tyrant they seized, 
While Minerva he vainly implor'd. 

And the Goddess of Wisdom was pleased 
With the victim of Liberty's sword. 



420A.C.] PLATO. 151 

May your bliss be immortal on high, 

Among men as your glory shall be; 
Ye doomed the usurper to die, 

And bade our dear country be free. 

On this important ode, and the great event which it celebrates, the 
one hundred and twelfth number of the Edinburgh Review remarks, — 
* Amidst the doubts and contradictions of historians and philosophers — 
Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato — it is difficult not to believe that the action 
thus commemorated, though prompted, perhaps, like the revolt of Tell, 
by private injury, was an example of that rude justice, whose ambiguous 
morality is forgiven for its signal public benefits. Something of greatness 
and true splendor there must have been about a deed of which the mem- 
ory was cherished as an heir-loom by the whole Athenian community of 
freemen, and made familiar as household words, by constant convivial cel- 
ebration. Not until the decline of Attic liberty, and the approach of 
universal degradation, did a comic writer presume to sneer at the lay of 
Harmodius as wearing out of fashion. It was an ill sign of the poet to 
indulge in such a sneer, and it was a worse sign of the people to en- 
dure it.' 

Plato and Aristotle, after Socrates, the two most eminent philosophers 
that Greece ever produced, deserve a passing notice among the Grecian 
poets of this period. 

Plato, it is true, abandoned poetry immediately after he began to turn 
his attention to the severer studies of philosophy ; but the whole of the 
early part of his literary life was devoted to the Muses. Indeed, from 
the poetic tinge which colors all his philosophical writings, particularly 
the Memorabilia of Socrates, there can be no doubt that his genius was 
such as would have led to the highest degree of excellence in any depart- 
ment of poetry to which he might have devoted his exalted intellect. 
The intrinsic merit of the following fragments will commend them to 
every reader capable of appreciating a pure and exalted poetic vein. The 
lines on the tomb of Themistocles have been by some critics, but we think 
without sufficient authority, attributed to a contemporary poet of the 
same name : 



THE ANSWER OF THE MUSES TO VENUS. 

"When Venus bade the Aonian Maids obey, 

Or Cupid else should vindicate her sway, 

The virgins answered: 'Threat your subjects thus I 

That puny warrior has no arms for us!' 



152 PLATO. [Leot.VL 



A MORE ENLARGED VERSION OF THE SAME. 

Thus to the Muses spoke the Cyprian dame: 
* Adore my altars, and revere my name; 
My son shall else assume his potent darts: 
Twang goes the bow ; my girls, have at your hearts V 
The Muses answered: — 'Venus, we deride 
The infant's malice, and his mother's pride; 
Send him to nymphs who sleep in Ida's shade, 
To the loose dance, and wanton masquerade; 
Our thoughts are settled, and intent our look 
On the instructive verse and moral book. 
On female idleness his power relies, 
But, when he finds us studying hard, he flies. 



ON A RURAL IMAGE OF PAN. 

Sleep, ye rude winds: be every murmur dead 

On yonder oak-crowned promontory's head! 

Be still, ye bleating flocks, — your shepherd calls. 

Hang silent on your rocks, ye waterfalls ! 

Pan on his oaten pipe awakes the strain, 

And fills with dulcet sounds the pastoral plain. 

Lur'd by his notes, the Nymphs their bowers forsake, 

From every fountain, running stream, and lake, 

From every hill, and ancient grove around, 

And to symphonious measures strike the ground. 



ON A SLEEPING CUPID. 

I pierced the grove, and, in its deepest gloom 
Beheld sweet Love, of heavenly form and bloom ; 
Nor bow nor quiver at his back were strung, 
But harmless on the neighboring branches hung. 
On rose buds pillowed, lay the little child, 
In glowing slumbers pleased, and sleeping smil'd, 
"While all around the bees delighted sip 
The breathing fragrance of his balmy lip. 



ON THE IMAGE OF A SATYR, 

AND A CUPID SLEEPING BY A FOUNTAIN SIDE. 

From mortal hands, my being I derive, 
Mute marble once, from man I learnM to live. 
A Satyr now, with nymphs I hold resort, 
And guard the watery grottos where they sport. 



420A.C] PLATO. 153 

In purple wine refused to revel more, 
Sweet draughts of water from my urn I pour ; 
But, Stranger, softly tread, lest any sound 
Awake yon boy, in rosy slumbers bound. 



ON DION OF SYRACUSE. 

For Priam's queen and daughters, at their birth, 

The Fates weaved tears into their web of life : 
But for thee, Dion, in thy hour of mirth, 

When triumph crowned thine honourable strife 
Thy gathering hopes were poured upon the sand. 

Thee still thy countrymen revere and lay 
In the broad precincts of thy native land, 

But who the passion of my grief shall stay ? 



A LOVER'S WISH. 

Why dost thou gaze upon the sky ? 

Oh, that I were yon spangled sphere! 
And every star should be an eye 

To wander o'er thy beauties here. 



THE KISS. 

Oh! on that kiss my soul, 

As if in doubt to stay, 
Lingered awhile, on fluttering wing, prepar'd 

To soar away. 

ON HIS BELOVED. 

In life thou wert my morning star, 
But now that Death has stol'n thy light,' 

Alas, thou shinest dim and far, 
Like the pale beam that weeps at night. 



ON ARISTOPHANES. 

The Muses, seeking for a shrine. 

Whose glories ne'er shall cease, 
Found, as they strayed, the soul divine 

Of Aristophanes. 

ON THE TOMB OF THEMISTOCLES. 

By the sea's margin, on the watery strand, 
Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand: 
By this directed, to thy native shore 
The merchant shall convey his freighted store; 



154: ARISTOTLE [Lect. VL 

And when our fleets are summoned to the fight, 
Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight. 

Aristotle would, perhaps, have become equally renowned as a poet as 
he was as a philosopher, had he seriously devoted his great intellectual 
powers to that divine art. The following beautiful hymn, or paean, was 
written in honor of his patron, Hermias, tyrant of Atarnea, but who had 
been originally a slave. The origin of the fine epitaph on the tomb of 
Ajax, is unknown : 



HYMN TO VIRTUE. 

sought with toil and mortal strife 

By those of human birth, 
Virtue, thou noblest end of life, 

Thou goodliest gain on earth ! 
Thee, Maid, to win, our youth would bear 
Unwearied, fiery pains; and dare 

Death for thy beauty's worth ; 
So bright thy proffered honors shine, 
Like clusters of a fruit divine. 

Sweeter than slumber's boasted joys, 

And more desired than gold, 
Dearer than nature's dearest ties : — 

For thee those heroes old; 
Herculean son of highest Jove, 
And the twin-birth of Leda, strove 

By perils manifold: 
Great Peleus' son, with like desire, 
And Ajax sought the Stygian fire. 

The bard shall crown- with lasting lay, 

And age immortal make 
Atarnea's sovereign, 'reft of day 

For thy dear beauty's sake : 
Him, therefore, the recording Nine 
In songs extol to heights divine, 

And every chord awake ; 
Promoting still, with reverence due, 
The meed of friendship tried and true. 



ON THE TOMB OF AJAX. 

By Ajax* tomb, in solemn state, 

I, Virtue, as a mourner wait, 

"With hair dishevell'd, sable vest, 

Fast streaming eyes and heaving breast 

Since in the Grecian tents I see 

Fraud, hateful Fraud, preferr'd to me. 



420A.C.J MNASALCUS.— HYBRIAS. 155 

Mnasalcas, a contemporary of Aristotle, and a native of a village in the 
territory of Sicyon, called Plataeae, was an epigrammatic writer of great 
merit. Nothing farther of his life is known. Brunck gives eighteen of 
his epigrams, the first of which is the following parody on Aristotle's 
epitaph on the tomb of Ajax : 



PARODY 

ON AN INSCRIPTION OF ARISTOTLE. 

In woful guise, at Pleasure's gate, 

I, Virtue, as a mourner wait, 

"With hair in loose disorder flowing, 

And breast with fierce resentment glowing, 

Since, all the country round, I see 

Base sensual joys preferred to me. 

To this parody we add the following brief inscriptions :— 

ON A TEMPLE OF VENUS NEAR THE SEA-SHORE. 

Here let us from the wave-washed beach behold 

Sea-born Cythera's venerable fane, 
And fountains fringed with shady poplars old 

"Where dip their wings the golden halcyon train. 

ON A PIPE IN THE TEMPLE OF VENUS. 

Say, rustic pipe ! in Cythera's dome 
"Why sounds this echo of a shepherd's home ? 
Nor rocks, nor valleys, here invite the strain; 
But all is Love — go, seek thy hills again. 

ON THE SHIELD OF ALEXANDER. 

A holy offering at Diana's shrine, 

See Alexander's glorious shield recline ; 

Whose golden orb, through many a bloody day, 

Triumphant, ne'er in dust dishonor'd lay. 

With a brief notice of Hybrias of Crete, Hermesianax of Colophon, 
and Perses of Thebes or Macedonia, we shall close our present remarks. 

Hybrias was, in his day, a lyric poet of great celebrity, and is the au- 
thor of the following brief scholion — -a poem so greatly esteemed as to 
be preserved by Athenseus, Eustatheus, and in the Greek Anthology. 
Of this writer we have unfortunately no farther knowledge : 



156 HERMESIANAX. [Lect. VI. 



THE WARRIOR'S RICHES. 

My wealth's a burly spear and brand, 
And a right good shield of hides untann'd, 

Which on mine arm I buckle : 
With these I plough, I reap, I sow, 
With these I make the vintage flow, 

And all around me truckle. 

But your wights that take no pride to wield 
A massy spear and a well-made shield, 

Nor joy to draw the sword : 
Oh I I bring those heartless, hapless drones 
Down, in a trice, on their marrow-bones, 

To call me king and lord. 

Hermesianax, a distinguished elegiac poet, was born at Colophon 
about 360 A.C. His principal production was an elegiac poem, in three 
books, addressed to his mistress Leontium, whose name formed the title 
of the poem. A very considerable part of the third book is quoted by 
Athenseus, and also Pausanias. Pausanias introduces another quotation 
also, from this author, as part of an elegy on the Centaur Eurytion; 
which, however, is of doubtful authority. We give the former extract 
entire : 

THE LOVES OF THE GREEK POETS. 

Such was the nymph whom Orpheus led 
From the dark mansions of the dead, 
Where Charon with his lazy boat 
Ferries o'er Lethe's sedgy moat ; 
The undaunted minstrel smites the strings, 
His strain through hell's vast conclave rings ; 
Cocytus hears the plaintive theme, 
And refluent turns his pitying stream ; 
Three-headed Cerberus, by fate 
Posted at Pluto's iron gate, 
Low-crouohing rolls his haggard eyes 
Extatic, and foregoes the prize ; 
With ears erect at hell's wide doors, 
Lies listening as the songster soars : 
Thus music charm'd the realm beneath, 
And beauty triumph' d over death. 

The bard, whom night's pale regent bore 

In secret on the Athenian shore, 

Musaeus felt the sacred flame, 

And burnt for the fair Theban dame, 

Antiope, whom mighty Love 

Made pregnant by imperial Jove; 



A.C.] HERMESIANAX. 157 

The poet plied his amorous strain, 
Press'd the fond fair, nor press'd in vain ; 
For Ceres, who the veil undrew, 
That screen'd her mysteries from view, 
Propitious this kind truth reveal'd, 
That woman close-besieged will yield. 

Homer, of all past bards the prime, 
And wonder of all future time, 
"Whom Jove with wit sublimely blest, 
And touched with purest fire his breast, 
Prom gods and heroes turned away 
To warble the domestic lay, 
And, wandering to the desert isle, 
On whose parch'd rocks no seasons smile, 
In distant Ithaca was seen 
Chaunting the suit-repelling queen. 

Old Hesiod, too, his native shade 

Made vocal to the Ascrsean maid 

The bard his heaven-directed lore 

Forsook, and hymn'd the gods no more ; 

Soft, love-sick ditties now he sung, 

Love touch'd his harp, love tuned his tongue, 

Silenced his Heliconian lyre, 

And quite put out religion's fire. 

Mimnermus tuned his amorous lay, 
When time had turned his temples gray; 
Love revelled in his aged veins, 
Soft was his lyre, and sweet his strains; 
Frequenter of the wanton feast, 
Nanno his theme, and youth his guest. 

Antimachus with tender art 

Pour'd forth the sorrows of his heart; 

In her Dardanian grave he laid 

Chryseis, his belov'd maid ; 

And thence returning, sad beside 

Pactolus' melancholy tide, 

To Colophon the minstrel came, 

Still sighing forth the mournful name, 

Till lenient time his grief appeas'd 

And tears by long indulgence ceas'd. 

Alcseus strung his sounding lyre, 
And smote it with a hand of fire, 
To Sappho, fondest of the fair, 
Chanting the loud and lofty air. 
***** 

E'en Sophocles, whose honey'd lore, 
Rivals the bee's delicious store. 



158 PERSES. [Lect.VL 

Chorus'd the praise of -wine and love, 
Choicest of all the gifts of Jove. 
***** 

Philoxenus, by wood-nymphs bred, 
On famed Cithasron's sacred head, 
And trained to music, wine, and song, 
Midst orgies of the frantic throng, 
"When beauteous Galatea died, 
His flute and thyrsus cast aside; 
And, wandering to thy pensive coast, 
Sad Melos, where his love was lost; 
Each night, through the responsive air, 
Thy echoes witness'd his despair; 
Still, still his plaintive harp was heard, 
Soft as the nightly-singing bird. 

Philotas, too, in Battis' praise, 
Sung his long-winded roundelays ; 
His statue in the Coan groves 
How breathes in brass perpetual love. 

The mortified, abstemious Sage, 

Deep-read in learning's crabbed page, 

Pythagoras, whose boundless soul 

Scaled the wide globe from pole to pole, 

Earth, planets, seas, and heavens above, 

Yet found no spot secure from love ; 

"With love declines unequal war, 

And, trembling, drags his conqueror's car, 

Theano clasp'd him in her arms, 

And Wisdom stooped to Beauty's charms. 

E'en Socrates, whose moral mind 
"With truth enlighten'd all mankind, 
"When at Aspasia's side he sate, 
Still found no end to love's debate, 
For strong indeed must be the heart, 
"Where love finds no unguarded part. 

Sage Aristippus, by right rule 
Of logic, purged the Sophist's school, 
Check'd folly in its headlong course, 
And swept it down by reason's force ; 
Till Yenus aimed the heartfelt blow, 
And laid the mighty victor low. 

Perses was also an epigrammatic poet, and was included in the Garland 
of Meleager ; but whether he was a Theban or a Macedonian is uncer- 
tain, as in the title of one of his epigrams he is made to belong to the 
former of those countries, and in that of another to the latter. The 



860A.C] PERSES. 159 

Greek Anthology contains nine of his epigrams, of which the following 
is a sample : 



ON THE MONUMENT OF A DAUGHTER. 

Unblest Manilla! On this speaking tomb 

What means the type of emblematic gloom ? 

Thy lost Callirhoe we here survey, 

Just as she mourned her ebbing soul away, 

Just as the death-mists o'er her eye-lids fell, 

In those maternal arms she loved so well. 

There, too, the speechless father sculptured stands, 

That cherished head supporting with his hands. 

Alas ! alas ! thus grief is made to flow 

A ceaseless stream— eternity of woe. 



tnhxt tfje imtttfj. 



LYCOPHROtf.— THEOCRITUS.— ARATUS — DIOTIMTIS.— ASCLEPIADES.— 
PHJEDIMAS.— NICTAS.— NOSSIS.— ANYTE. 

SOON after the age of Callistratus- and his contemporaries, lyric and 
other miscellaneous poetry, in Greece proper, comparatively ceased, 
and hence in pursuing our subject we must now turn our attention to a 
new region. Athens, it is true, still preserved her comic drama, "but its 
power and influence were gone. The sceptre of Philip of Macedon had, 
as the consequence of his victory at Chaeronea, 337 A.C., become ex- 
tended over all Greece ; and the despotic sway of his son and successor 
Alexander the Great, pressed the hand of oppression upon the whole 
country with such severity, that even the impetuous tongue of Demos- 
thenes was stopped, and the acrimonious muse of Aristophanes abandoned. 
Whilst the country had, therefore, lost its liberty, and was trembling lest 
its national existence should be destroyed, little time or thought could 
be extended to the patronage of those arts in which they had formerly 
so greatly exulted, and for which they had long been so eminently distin- 
guished. 

At the close of Alexander's career, 224 A.C., which was as brief as it 
was brilliant, his vast empire, after a struggle between his principal 
generals, of twenty-three years' continuance, and ending in the battle of 
Issus, fell under the control of Seleucus, Lysimachus, Antiochus, and 
Ptolemy Lagus, the last of whom was not only a distinguished soldier 
and a man of great energy of character, but also a Macedonian of refined 
taste and exalted attainments. To his share in the division of the vast 
Macedonian empire, Egypt fell ; and he had no sooner reduced his new 
dominions to order and regularity, and settled its government, than he 
resolved to make Alexandria, his capital, what Athens had formerly been 
— the seat of literature, the arts, and the sciences. With this view he 
invited men of eminence from every part of Greece and its former depen- 
dencies, to resort to his court ; and he there extended to them a patron- 
age marked with royal munificence. Alexandria, therefore, soon became, 

11 



162 LYCOPHRON. [Lect. VII. 

not orJy the scat of the Muses, but the home of the sciences, and the 
abode of both genius and learning. Of the poets who resorted thither, 
Lycophron is the first to be noticed. 

Lycophron was a native of Chalcis, in the island of Euboea, and was 
born about 304 A.C. He was the son of Socles, and the adopted son of 
the historian Lycus of Rhegium; and from such exalted connections it is 
natural to infer that he received every advantage of culture and educa- 
tion, though of his early life we have no knowledge. But that he must 
have attained to some degree of eminence before he left his native island 
is evident from the fact, that, soon after his arrival at the court of Alex- 
andria, he occupied the most prominent place among the poets of that 
court, and enjoyed the personal confidence and the privilege of familiar 
intercourse with the sovereign, Ptolemy Philadelphus. 

That monarch, observing the refined taste and high degree of cultiva- 
tion of Lycophron's mind, entrusted to him the arrangement of the works 
of the comic poets contained in the Alexandrian library. In the execu- 
tion of this commission he drew up a very extensive work on comedy, 
which appears to have embraced the whole subject of the history and 
nature of the comic drama of Greece, together with accounts of the 
comic poets, and, besides this, many matters bearing indirectly on the in- 
terpretation of the comedians. 

Lycophron doubtless found, on his arrival at the court of Alexandria, 
many other poets of eminence ; and as Grecian poetry from this period 
assumes an aspect of more uncontrolled fancy than it possessed in its 
earlier and severer reign, one of the first acts of the Alexandrian poets 
was to form themselves into a constellation which they transferred to the 
heavens under the name of the Pleiades. Of this poetic constellation 
Lycophron was the first conspicuous star ; Theocritus, the second ; 
Aratus, the third ; Nicander, the fourth ; Apollonius, the fifth ; Philochus, 
the sixth ; and Homyres the younger, the seventh. 

These poets, in the refined and delicate court of Ptolemy, basked in 
the sunshine of perpetual prosperity, and were placed by their liberal 
monarch in a position of ease and entire independence ; and hence, as is 
always the case under similar circumstances, few important incidents 
marked their lives. It is only amidst the whirlwind and the storm that 
the fires of genius burst forth, and variety of scene and circumstance in 
the poet's life are exhibited. "We are not to expect, therefore, in the 
poets of the Alexandrian school, the vivid, fervid, and absorbing powers 
of genius that were displayed by Pindar and his associates ; but their 
poetry flows in a pure, limpid, and quiet stream — abounding in the beau- 
tiful, but the beautiful of a subdued and easy tone. 

The time of Lycophron's death is uncertain ; but he is generally sup- 
posed to have lived to an advanced age, and to have retained, till his 
death, the confidence, and even affection, of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and 



S04A.C] LYOOPHRON. 163 

of bis son and successor, Ptolemy Evergetes. According to Ovid lie 
was killed by tbe random sbot of an arrow. 

As a poet, Lycopbron obtained a place in the Tragic Pleiad ; but if be 
ever wrote tragedies, there is not a fragment of any of them extant. The 
only one of his poems that has come down to us is the Cassandra, or 
Alexandra. This is neither a tragedy nor an epic poem, but a long 
Iambic monologue, in which Cassandra is made to prophesy the fall of 
Troy ; the adventures of the Grecian and Trojan heroes, with numerous 
other mythological and historical events, going back as early as the Argo - 
nauts, the Amazons, and the fables of Io and Europa, and ending with 
Alexander the Great. The poem was, doubtless, designed as a compli- 
ment to Ptolemy himself, and to indicate to his mind the events of that 
destiny which had finally raised him from an ordinary station to that of 
one of the most powerful and brilliant monarchs of the age in which he 
lived. This poem is frequently called the ' Dark Poem,' in consequence 
of the great obscurity which pervades many parts of it ; but in a mytho- 
logical point of view, it has ever been regarded as of the highest import- 
ance. The extract which we have selected in illustration of these remarks, 
is the prophesy of the death of Hector by the hand of Achilles ; for, in 
addition to its intrinsic merit, it contains allusions of great historical 
importance : 

PROPHESY OF THE DEATH OF HECTOR. 

Now Myrina's turrets o'er 
And along the ocean shore 
Sounds are heard of wailing cries, 
Neighings shrill of war-steeds rise. 
When the tawny wolf,* his feet, 
With Thessalian swiftness fleet, 
Springing with impetuous leap. 
Presses on the sandy steep ; 
Hidden fountains gushing round, 
As he stamps the yielding ground. 
Mars, in war-dance famed, hath stood, 
Blowing shrill the trump of blood. 
All the earth, before mine eyes, 
Drear and desolated lies: 
Lances bristle, and in air 
Iron harvest's waving glare. 
From the topmost tower I bend: 
Shrieks the height of air ascend : 
Groans are utter'd ; garments torn ; 
Women o'er the slaughters mourn. 
Woe my heart ! to me, to me 
That the heaviest blow will be ; 
That will gnaw my soul to see. 

* Achilles. 



164 THEOCRITUS. [Lect. VIL 

Lo ! the warlike eagle * come 
Green of eye, and black of plume : 
Screaming fierce he swooping springs, 
Marks the dust with trailing wings ;\ 
Plougher of the furrow'd sand, 
Sweeping circles track the land. 
"With a mix'd and horrid cry, 
See he snatches him on high ! 
Brother ! to my soul endear'd ! 
Nursling, by Apollo rear'd 1 
Beak and talon keen deface 
All his body's blooming .grace : 
Slaughter-dyed, his native wood 
Reddens with the stain of blood. 

Theocritus, the second star in the Alexandrian constellation, and one 
of the most remarkable poetic geniuses of any age or country, was the son 
of Praxagoras and Philinna, and was born at Syracuse, in the island of 
Sicily, about 300 A. C. His parentage, though respectable, was com- 
paratively obscure ; and of the early part of his life, or of his family, we 
have no farther information than that which we derive from an epigram 
usually set in front of his works, and which, according to Suidas, was 
probably written by Theocritus of Chios. The date of his birth and the 
period in which he flourished, are derived from two of his Idyls, the one 
addressed to Hiero the Second, king of Syracuse, and the other to Ptole- 
my Philadelphus, King of Egypt. 

Theocritus remained in his native place until he had so far distinguished 
himself by his poetic genius as to attract very extensive notice among the 
poets of his age ; and perhaps he would have confined his residence to his 
native city had his monarch been a man of taste, or a patron of the arts 
This, however, not being the character of Hiero, Theocritus sought patron 
age at the distant court of Ptolemy Philadelphus, where, as we have al 
ready remarked, science and art, in any department, received all the patron 
age, and all the fostering care which that monarch could bestow upon them 

It was with reluctance, however, that Theocritus left the place of his 
nativity, notwithstanding the brilliant inducements that Alexandria held 
out to him ; and before he took his departure, therefore, he addressed to 
Hiero an Idyl, in which he intimated his design, and at the same time 
delicately complained that neglect by his own sovereign was the cause 
of his seeking patronage abroad, — remarking, at the same time, that if 
Hiero were as munificent a patron of poetry and the arts as he was a 
splendid subject for them, he would be unsurpassed by any living monarch. 

On arriving at the court of Alexandria, whither his fame had preceded 
him, Theocritus was received by Philadelphus with every conceivable 
mark of honor and distinction; and he there met Aratus, the distin- 
guished author of ' The Phenomena,' a poet of congenial spirit with his 
* Achilles. t His chariot-wheels. 



800 A.G] THEOCRITUS. 165 

own, and with whom he immediately formed so close an intimacy, that it 
thenceforth became a common practice with them to borrow from each 
other's poems extensive and important passages. Thus the commence- 
ment of the first Idyl, addressed by Theocritus to Ptolemy, is an extract, 
without alteration, from a poem of Aratus. 

The germ of the bucolic poetry of Theocritus may be discovered, at a 
very early period, among the Dorians, both of Laconia and of Sicily, — 
especially at Tyndaris and Syracuse, where the festivals of Artemis were 
enlivened by songs, in which two shepherds or herdsmen, or two parties 
of them, contended with one another, and which gradually grew into an 
art, practised by a class of performers called Lydiastce and Bucolistce, 
who flourished extensively in Sicily and the neighboring districts of Italy. 
The subjects of their songs were popular mythical stories and the scenes 
of country life ; the beauty, love, and unhappy end of Daphnis, the ideal 
of the shepherd, who was introduced by Stesichorus into his poetry, and 
of Diomus, who was named by Epicharmus ; the melancholy complaints 
of the coy huntsman Menalcas ; and other kindred subjects. These 
songs were still popular in the time of Diodorus ; but scarcely a fragment 
of them has come down to us. 

The poems of Theocritus were written in the Doric dialect, — a dialect 
peculiarly adapted to such subjects, — and were styled by their author 
[ Idyls,' to indicate their general brevity, and the variety of their sub- 
jects. We should now call them miscellanies. Of these miscellanies 
thirty are still preserved, the first nine and the eleventh of which are 
pastorals; and in pastoral poetry Theocritus holds the same rank that 
Homer holds in epic, — comparatively the originator, and certainly the 
perfector. Hence critics have uniformly drawn their rules for com- 
position in this department of poetry from the practice of this eminent 
writer ; and hence also Virgil's Eclogues are mere translations, or at best 
nothing more than imitations of this great original pastoral writer. 

The poetry of Theocritus is marked throughout by the strength and 
vivacity of original genius. Everything in it is distinct and peculiar. 
Everything is individualized and brought strongly and closely to the eye 
and understanding of the reader, so as to stamp upon the mind the im- 
pression of reality. His scenes of nature, and his men and women are 
equally striking, — distinct in features and in manners, and may be easily 
described by the peculiar picturesqueness of character which they present. 
His humor is chiefly shown in the portraitures of the middle rank, and 
in city life, where he abounds in strokes of character not confined to 
ancient times, and in natural peculiarities to suit all ages and all climes ; 
hence his permanent and enduring popularity. He is not limited to 
rough, rustic, or comic dialogue or incident, but passes with equal facility 
to refined and elevated subjects ; and hence those who have heard of the 



16G THEOCRITUS. [Lect. VII. 

rusticity only of Theocritus will be unexpectedly struck by the delicacy 
of his thoughts, and the richness and eloquence of his fancy. Conse- 
quently, while some have made coarseness an objection to Theocritus, 
others have affected to talk of his assigning to his rustics words and sen- 
timents above their station ; as if Theocritus was not himself the best 
judge of the manners of his own countrymen. 

The scene of the Idyls is uniformly laid in the poet's native island ; 
and, perhaps, Sicily at that time abounded, to a greater extent than any 
other country familiar to the Greeks, in those peculiar characteristics 
which the variety of rustic or pastoral life required; and hence the 
naturalness of his delineations is- such as to present, not only each group- 
ing, but each individual character with the force of verisimilitude. 

The period of this extraordinary and original writer's death is uncer- 
tain ; but he is generally supposed to have returned, in advanced life, to 
Syracuse, where, according to an intimation by Ovid, he was strangled by 
order of the king, but for what cause is not mentioned. The variety and 
importance of the remains of this truly great poet, make it necessary that 
our illustrations of his genius should be much more extensive than in 
ordinary cases ; and in the extracts which follow, we have, therefore, 
endeavored to present all the varied aspects under which his poetry 
a])pears : 

CHARACTER OF PTOLEMY PHILADELPHIA. 

FROM THE FOURTEENTH IDYL. 

"What is Lis character? A royal spirit 

To point out genius and encourage merit ; 

The poet's friend, humane, and good, and kind; » • 

Of manners gentle, and of generous mind. 

He marks his friend, but more he marks his foe; 

His hand is ever ready to bestow: 

Request with reason, and hell grant the thing, 

And what he gives, he gives it like a kino\ 



PRAISES OF PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS. 

FROM THE SEVENTEENTH IDYL. 

"With Jove begin, ye Nine, and end with Jove, 
"Whene'er ye praise the greatest god above: 
But if of noblest men, the song ye cast, „ 

Let Ptolemy be first, and midst, and last. 
Heroes of old, from demigods that sprung,- 
Chose lofty poets, who their actions sung. 
Well skill'd, I tune to Ptolemy, my reed; 
Hymns are of gods, above the honor'd meed. 



300 A.C.] 



THEOCRITUS. 



167 



To Ida, •when the -woodman winds his way, 
Where verdant pines their towering tops display, 
Doubtful he stands, with undetermined look, 
Where first to deal the meditated stroke: 
And where shall I commence ? New themes aris 
Deeds that exalt his glory to the skies. 
If from his fathers we commence the plan, 
Lagus how great, how excellent a man! 
Who to no earthly potentate would yield 
For wisdom at the board, or valor in the field: 
Him with the gods Jove equals, and has given 
A golden palace in the realms of heaven: 
Near him sits Alexander, wise and great, 
The fell destroyer of the Persian state. 
Against them, thron'd in adamant, in view 
Alcides, who the Cretan monster slew, 
Reclines, and, as with gods the feast he shares, 
Glories to meet his own descendant heirs; 
From age, and pain's impediments, repriev'd, 
And in the rank of deities receiv'd. 
For in his line are both these heroes class'd, 
And both deriv'd from Hercules the last. 
Thence, when the neetar'd bowl his love inspires 
And to the blooming Hebe he retires, 
To this his bow and quiver he allots, 
To that his iron club, distinct with knots; 
Thus Jove's great son is by his offspring led 
To silver-footed Hebe's rosy bed. 

How Berenice shone! her parent's pride, 
Virtue her aim, and wisdom was her guide: 
Sure Venus with light touch her bosom press'd, 
Infusing in her soft ambrosial breast 
Pure, constant love: hence faithful records tell 
No monarch ever lov'd his queen so well; 
No queen with such undying passion burn'd, 
For more than equal fondness she return'd. 
Whene'er to love the chief his mind unbends, 
To his son's care the kingdom he commends. 
Unfaithful wives, dissatisfied at home, 
Let their wild thoughts on joys forbidden roam : 
Their births are known, yet of a numerous race, 
None shows the features of the father's face. 
Venus, than all the goddesses more fair, 
The lovely Berenice was thy care; 
To thee 'twas owing, gentle, kind, and good, 
She past not Acheron's woe-working flood. 
Thou caught'st her e'er she went where spectres dwell, 
Or Charon, the grim ferryman of hell ; 
And in thy temple plac'd the royal fair, 
Thine own high honor's privilege to share. 
Thence gentle love in mortals she inspires 
And soft solicitudes, and sweet desires. 



168 THEOCRITUS. [Lect.VIL 

The fair Deipyle to Tydeus bare 
Stern Diomed, the thunderbolt of war ; 
And Thetis, goddess of the azure wave, 
To Peleus brought Achilles, bold and brave; 
But Berenice nobler praise hath won, 
"Who bore great Ptolemy, as great a son: 
And sea-girt Cos receiv'd thee soon as born, 
"When first thine eyes beheld the radiant morn. 
For there thy mother to Lucina pray'd, 
Who sends to those who suffer child-bed, aid.' 
She came, and friendly to the genial bed, 
A placid, sweet tranquillity she shed 
O'er all her linibs ; and thus, serene and mild, 
Like his lov'd sire, was born the lovely child. 
Cos saw, and fondling in her arms the boy, 
Thus spoke, transported, with the voice of joy : 
1 Quick rise to light, auspicious babe be born ! 
And me with equal dignity adorn 
As Phoebus Delos : — on fam'd Triops' brow, 
And on the neighboring Dorian race bestow 
Just honors — and as favorably smile, 
As the god views with joy Rhensea's fertile isle/ 
The island spoke; and thrice the bird of Jove 
His pinions clang'd, resounding from above ; 
Jove's omen thunder'd from his eagle's wings; 
Jove loves and honors venerable kings. 
But whom in infancy his care befriends, 
Him power, and wealth, and happiness attends : 
He rules, belov'd, unbounded tracts of land, 
And various oceans roll at his command. 
Unnumber'd nations view their happy plains, 
Fresh fertiliz'd by Jove's prolific rains : 
But more, like Egypt, can such plenty boast, 
"When genial Nile o'erflows the humid coast : — 
Here, too, O Ptolemy! beneath thy sway 
What cities glitter to the beams of day ! 
Lo ! with thy statelier pomp no kingdom vies, 
While round thee thrice ten thousand cities rise. 
Struck by the terror of thy flashing sword, 
Syria bow'd down, Arabia call'd thee lord ; 
Phoenicia trembled, and the Lybian plain, 
With the black iEthiop, own'd thy wide domain: 
E'en Lesser Asia and her isles grew pale, 
As o'er the billows pass'd thy crowd of sail. 
Earth feels thy nod, and all the subject sea ; 
And each resounding river rolls for thee. 
And while around thy thick battalions flash, 
Thy proud steeds neighing for the warlike clash, 
Through all thy marts the tide of commerce flows, 
And wealth beyond a monarch's grandeur glows. 
Such gold-hair'd Ptolemy ! whose easy port 
Speaks the soft polish of the manuer'd court ; 



300A.C.1 THEOCRITUS. 169 

And whose severer aspect, as he wields 

The spear, dire-blazing, frowns in tented fields. 

And though he guards, while other kingdoms own 

His conquering arms, the hereditary throne, 

Yet in vast heaps no useless treasure stor'd 

Lies, like the riches of an emmet's hoard ; 

To mighty kings his bounties he extends, 

To state confederate, and illustrious friends. 

No bard at Bacchus' festival appears, 

Whose lyre has power to charm the ravish'd ears, 

But he bright honors and rewards imparts, 

Due to his merits, equal to his arts : 

And poets hence, for deathless song renown' d, 

The generous fame of Ptolemy resound. 

At what more glorious can the wealthy aim, 

Than thus to purchase fair and lasting fame ? 

The great Atridae this alone enjoy, 

"While all the wealth and spoil of plunder'd Troy, 

That 'scap'd the raging flame, or whelming wave, 

Lies buried in oblivion's greedy grave. 

Close trode great Ptolemy, at virtue's call, 

His father's footsteps, but surpast them all. 



THE SYRACUSAN GOSSIPS. 

FROM THE FIFTEENTH IDYL. 

Subject. — Two Syracusan women, who had travelled to Alexandria, go to see the 
solemnity of Adonis' festival, which had been prepared by Arsinoe, the queen of 
Ptolemy Philadelphus. 

Characters. — Gorgo, Eitnoe, Praxinoe, Old Woman, and Stranger. 

Gor. Ho ! is Praxinoe within ? 

Eu. Dear Gorgo ! 
How late you are ! she is within. 

Prax. I wonder 
That you are come at last. Quick, Eunoe, bring 
A seat, and place a cushion. 

Eu. 'Tis all right. 

Gor. Breath of my body ! I have scarce escaped 
Alive to you, Praxinoe ; through such crowds 
Of people, and of chariots ! everywhere 
Clattering of shoes, and whisk of soldiers' cloaks, 
And such a weary way; and you are lodged 
At such a distance ! 

JPrax. Why that wise-acre 
Has found me out a den, and not a house, 
At the world's end, for fear we should be neighbors : 
My constant plague; and all for spite and envy 
He thwarts me thus ! 



!70 THEOCRITUS. [Lect. VIL 

Got. Mother of Yenus ! softly ! 
The little one is by; speak not so freely 
Of your good husband : Madam, do but look 
How the brat eyes you! 

Prax. That's a good, brave boy! 
Pretty Zopyrion! I'm not speaking, love, 
Of your good dad. 

Gor. By Proserpine, the child 
Has scent of it — No ; dad is good. 

Prax. That person 
Some time ago, (we'll speak of all as happening 
Some time ago,) he was to bring me rouge, 
And nitre, from a shop ; when home he came 
"With salt, forsooth ! an overgrown, long looby ! 

Gor. And, troth my own good man has these same pranks ; 
A very sieve for money : yesterday, 
He buys me, at seven drachmas, five old fleeces 
From backs of rotten sheep ; as coarse as dogs' hair ; 
Such riff-raff! refuse all, and good for nothing. 
But come — come ; take your clasp'd robe, and your scarf, 
And let's away to Ptolemy's rich palace 
And see Adonis : there's a stately show, 
I hear, preparing by the queen. 

Prax. Yes, yes; 
"With grand ones, all is grand. Now as you've seen 
And heard, do tell me all you've heard and seen, 
For I see nothing. 

Gor. Nay, nay, 'tis full time 
That we should, e'en, be going : they, who've leisure, 
Should make the most of holy days. 

Prax. Some water : 
Quick, fetch it, Eunoe : you've grown dainty, jade : 
Here, place it, wench: 'cats love to sleep on cushions:' 
Come, stir yourself : the water : I must wash 
Before I go : see how the daudle brings it ! 
"Well pour away ; soft, soft ! you pour away, 
Girl ! with a vengeance ! see, you giddy slut ! 
How you have wetted all my robe ! there — hold ! 
Thank Heaven, I'm wash'd however. Where's the key 
Of the great chest? go, Eunoe, bring it hither. 

Gor. Praxinoe, I own, that robe with clasps 
Becomes you mightily. "What might it cost 
"When in the piece ? 

Prax. t Oh Gorgo ! do not ask me! 
More than two pounds of silver, aud the making 
"Was near the death of me ! 

Gor. 'Tis made, however ; 
And to your mind, at last. 

Prax. "Why, yes, indeed: 
You have well said : it does, I think, become me. 
Now quick my scarf and parasol : stay, girl, 
Set the folds tidy. Child! I cannot take you; 



300A.C.] THEOCRITUS. 1U 

Hobgoblin is abroad ; the horses bite : 
Cry, as you may, I will not have you crippled. 
Let's go. Pray Phrygia! mind the little one, 
And try divert him. Stop — call in the dog : 
Mind, shut the street-door after us. Good Godsl 
There is a crowd! when we shall pass, or hoiv, 
I'm quite at my wits' end ! they're thick as ants. 
"Well — Ptolemy ! thou tread'st thy father's steps. 
His good deeds made a God of him ; and now 
Folks may pass safely in a crowd, without 
Those rogues' tricks, and sly gipsey practices, 
Which cheats and sharpers used to practice on us: 
All rogues alike, playing at fast and loose, 
And bustling for one's money. Dearest Gorgo ! 
What will become of us ? See the king's troopers ! 
Look, look, that chestnut horse rears bolt upright ! 
What a wild, furious beast ! run, Eunoe ! run, 
Out of his way! he'll break his rider's neck; 
I was in luck to leave the child at home! 

Gor. Take heart, Praxinoe : we have past them no . ; 
They've gallop'd towards the country. 

Prax. Thank my stars ! 
I can take breath again I a horse and snake 
I never could abide, quite from a girl. 
Come ; make a push : what a throng presses out 
Upon us. 

Gor. From the hall, good mother ? 

Old Woman. Aye, good daughter. 

Gor. Can we get in easily ? 

Old Woman. The Greeks, sweet wench, got Troy, by trying for't ; 
All's got by trying. 

Gor. There the old witch goes, 
With her wise saws and soothsayings. These women 
Seem to know everything. They'll tell us, how 
Jove kiss'd his wife. See, see, Praxinoe ! 
What crowds about the gate ! 
Prax. My stars ! immense ! 
Here, Gorgo, give your hand in mine; and you 
Eunoe, hold Eutychus by hers: mind, girl, 
And stick close to her, or you'll sure be lost : 
Let's all push in, at once ; mind, Eunoe, stick 
Close to us : lack-a-day ! there goes my veil ! 
Look Gorgo ! torn in two ! my dear good man, 
Heavens bless you, do not tear my scarf as well ! 

First Man. 'Tis not my fault, dear Madam ; yet I'll take 
What care I* can. 

Prax. How the crowd strive and press! 
Just like a drove of pigs ! 

Firjt Man. Take heart, dear Madam ! 
We're in, and safe at last. 

Prax. And so, good Sir, 
May you be safe and sound, the longest day 



172 



THEOCRITUS. [Lect. YIL 

You have to live. A good, kind gentleman ! 

To take euch care of us. Ah ! Eunoe's squeez'd ! 

Force your way, wench ! now, push ! that's bravely done. 

Now we're all in; as said the bridegroom tuck'd 

In bed with his young wife. 

Gor. Praxinoe, here ! 
Look at this tapestry, first ; how finely woven ! 
How elegant ! you'd think the Gods had woven it ! 

Frax. Holy Minerva ! how these weavers work ! 
See how like painters they have wrought the hangings 
With pictures large as life ! how natural 
They stand out; and how natural they move 
Upon the wall 1 they look alive, not woven. 
"Well! man, it must be own'd, is a wise creature. 
Ah ! there he is ! Adonis ! wonderful ! 
All on a couch of silver ! see, the down 
Seems peeping on his chin ! oh sweet Adonis ! 
They say he's loved in hell. 

Second Man. Be quiet, hussies ! 
Stop that eternal clack. You prate, and prate, 
Like two caged turtles, with that broad splay brogue. 

Gor. My goodness ! who's this fellow ? prate or not, 
"What is it, Sir, to you? You quite mistake 
Your persons, I believe. None of your airs 
To us. Belike you think you may talk big 
To Syracusans ; but we'd have you know, 
"We are from Corinth, Sir : of the same blood 
As was Bellerophon : our dialect 
Peloponnesian; let the Dorians speak 
The Doric brogue ; 'tis none of ours, believe me. 

Prax. Sweet Proserpine ! I'd send the fellow packing 
That dared crow over me: unless, indeed, 
My husband : you may threaten, Sir ; but I 
"Will not be cuft'd, depend on't. 

Gor. Hush 1 Praxinoe ; 
The Grecian woman's daughter's going to sing 
About Adonis : she that sings so finely : 
In plaintive airs, they say, she rivals Spercbis; 
Her song will be most charming; that I know; 
Now, watch her die-away soft look; she'll sing. 



Oh Yenus ! swimming all in gold ! oh queen 
That lovest the Golgiau groves, Idalia's green ! 
And steep, o'erbauging Eryx' mountain scene ! 
In the twelfth morn the hours, soft-footed, glide, 
And bring, from Acheron's perennial tide, 
Thy own Adonis: slow the hours may roam, 
Yet came with blessings, when at last they came. 
Oh daughter of Dione ! thou hast given 
To Berenice charms that bloom of Heaven ; 



300A.O.J THEOCRITUS. 173 

Pour'd dews ambrosial in her mortal breast, 
And bid her live, among immortals blest. 
Arsinoe now, her grateful daughter, fair 
As Helen's self, repays thee for thy care. 
. Oh graced with many names ! with many shrines ! 
Deck'd by her hands thy own Adonis shines. 
For him each tree the season's fruitage sheds ; 
From silver baskets breathe the garden-beds; 
Vases of gold drop Syrian unguents round ; 
And cakes of snowy meal with flowers are crown'd ; 
Smooth -kneaded in the board, with female toil, 
Of luscious honey, and of liquid oil. 
Here birds and reptiles haunt ; while anise weaves 
Its green festoons, and bowers them in its leaves. 
Small cupids, perch'd like nightingales on high, 
Vault midst the boughs, and, poised, their pinions try. 
Oh, ebony ! oh, gold ! and ivory white ! 
Oh eagles, bearing, in your upward flight, 
The youthful cup-bearer of Jove ! behold, 
Softer than sleep, the purple carpets roll'd ; 
The weaver of Miletus this might say, 
This tribute might the Samian shepherd pay. 
For the soft pair behold the couches spread ; 
Here Venus, there Adonis, gilds the bed ; 
Adonis, with his rose-tipp'd arms, now seen 
In bridegroom bloominess of fair eighteen; 
His ruddy lips just ripening into bliss, 
Impressing smooth the soft and beardless kiss. 
Then now let Venus with her bridegroom woo; 
But throngs of maidens, with the morning dew, 
Shall to the frothy waves his image bear, 
"With trailing vestures and dishevell'd hair ; 
And thus begin the song, with bosoms bare ; 
' Thou passest, dear Adonis ! to and fro 
To th' upper stream, from Acheron below : 
No other demi-god has thus return'd; 
Atrides ; Ajax, that with madness burn'd ; 
Hector, of Priam's sons the proudest joy ; 
Patroclus ; Pyrrhus, who subverted Troy ; 
Deucalion's race ; or Lapithae of old ; 
Or Pelops' flower; or those, of stern Pelasgian mould: 
Still smile, Adonis ! bless each future year ! 
Thou kind appearest now ; thus ever kind appear I' 

Gor. You'll own, Praxinoe, that a woman, too, 
Is a wise creature. What a blessed lady ! 
"What knowledge is within that little head ! 
And so sweet-voiced too ! But 'tis time for home. 
My good man has not dined : you know his temper : 
So cross and choleric ! I'd not have you meet him, 
Ere he has stay'd his stomach. Dear Adonis ! 
Now fare thee well! joy go with thy procession. 



174 THEOCRITUS. [Lect. YIL 



THE INFANT HERCULES. 

FROM THE TWENTY-FOURTH IDYL. 

Young Hercules had now beheld the light 

Only ten months, when once upon a night, 

Alcmena having washed, and given the breast 

To both her heavy boys, laid them to rest. 

Their cradle was a noble shield of brass, 

Won by her lord from slaughter'd Pterilas. 

Gently she laid them down, and gently laid 

Her hand on both their heads, and yearned, and said: 

' Sleep, sleep, my boys ! a light and pleasant sleep, 

My little souls, my twins, my guard, and keep ! 

Sleep happy, and wake happy !' And she kept 

Rocking the mighty buckler, and they slept. 

At midnight when the Bear went down, and broad 
Orion's shoulder lit the starry road, 
There came, careering through the opening halls, 
On livid spires, two dreadful animals — 
Serpents, whom Juno, threatening as she drove. 
Had sent there to devour the boy of Jove. 
Orbing their blood-fed bellies in and out, 
They tower'd along ; and, as they look'd about, 
An evil fire out of their eyes came lamping; 
A heavy poison dropp'd about their champing. 

And now they have arrived, and think to fall 
To their dread meal, when lo ! (for Jove sees all) 
The house is lit as with the morning's break, 
And the dear children of Alcmena wake. 
The younger one as soon as he beheld 
The evil creatures coming on the shield, 
And saw their loathsome teeth, began to cry 
And shriek, and kick away the clothes, and try 
All his poor little instincts of escape ; 
The other, grappling, seized them by the nape 
Of either poisonous neck, for all their twists, 
And held like iron in his little fists. 

Alcmena heatd the noise, and ' Wake !' she cried ; 
Amphitryon, wake ! for terror holds me tied ; 
1 Up ! stay not for the sandals. Hark ! the child — 
The youngest — how he shrieks ! The babe is wild ! 
And see the walls and windows! 'Tis as light 
As if 'twere day, and yet 'tis surely night. 
There's something dreadful in the house; there is, 
Indeed, dear husband !' He arose at this, 
And seized his noble sword, which overhead 
Was always hanging at the cedar bed. 

All in an instant, like a stroke of doom ; 
Returning midnight smote upon the room. 



300 A.C.] THEOCRITUS. 

Amphitryon called, and woke from heavy sleep 

His household, who lay breathing hard and deep: 

1 Brirjg lights here from the hearth ! lights ! lights ! and guard 

The door-ways ! rise ye ready laborers hard !' 

He said ; and lights came pouring in, and all 

The busy house was up in bower and hall ; 

But when they saw the little suckler, how 

He grasped the monsters, and with earnest brow 

Kept beating them together, plaything-wise, 

They shriek'd aloud; but he, with laughing eyes, 

Soon as he saw Amphitryon, leaped and sprung, 

Child-like, and at his feet the dead disturbers flung, 



LIBERALITY TO POETS ENJOINED. 

FROM THE SIXTEENTH IDYL. 



Not so the truly wise their wealth employ : 
'Tis there's to welcome every coming guest, 
And blessing each departed friend, be blest ; 
But chiefly their's to mark with high regard 
The Mbse's laurell'd priest — the holy bard ; 
Lest in the grave their unsung glory fade; 
And their cold moan pierce Acheron's dreary shade- 
As the poor laborer, who, with portion scant, 
Laments his long hereditary want. 
"What though Aleua's and the Syrian's domes 
Saw crowding myriads fill their festal rooms \ 
What though o'er Scopas' fields rich plenty fiow'd 
And herds innumerous through his valleys low'd ; 
What though the beautiful Creondse drove 
Full many a beauteous flock through many a grove: 
Yet when expiring life could charm no more, 
And their sad spirits sought the Stygian shore, 
Their grandeur vanish'd with their vital breath, 
And riches could not follow them in death ! 
Lo! these for many a rolling age had lain 
In blank oblivion, with the vulgar train, 
Had not their bard, the mighty Ceian-, strung 
His many-chorded harp, and sweetly sung, 
In various tones, each high-resounding name, 
And giv'n to long posterity their fame. 

Verse can alone the steed with glory grace, — 
Whose wreaths announce the triumph of the race ! 
Could Lycia's chiefs, or Cycnus' changing hues, 
Or Ilion live with no recording muse ? 
Not e'en Ulysses, who through dangers ran 
For ten long years in all the haunts of man ; 
Who e'en descended to the depths of hell, 
And fled unmangled from the Cyclop's cell; 
Not he had lived, but sunk, oblivion's prey, 
Had no kind poet pour'd the unfading ray. 



17C THEOCRITUS. [Lect. VII 

Thus, too, Philaetius had in silence past, 
And nameless, old Laertes breatk'd his last ; 
And good Eumseus fed his herds in vain, 
But for Ionia's life-inspiring strain. 
Lo ! while the spirit of the spendthrift heir 
Wings the rich stores amass'd by brooding care, 
"While the dead miser's scattering treasures fiy, 
The Muse forbids the generous man to die. 

Of the various poems of Theocritus that have come down to the 
present period, the poem which follows is certainly one of the most re- 
markable. It is called ' The Epithalamium of Helen,' and is evidently 
an imitation of the Song of Solomon. During the time that Theocritus 
dwelt at Alexandria, that translation of the Bible which is known as 
1 The Septuagint 1 was rendered out of the original Hebrew tongue into 
the Greek. The circumstances attending the translation were the fol- 
lowing : — 

King Ptolemy, being anxious to enrich the Alexandrian library — the 
foundation of which he had recently laid — with every valuable literary 
production that he could command, and having learned that the Jews 
possessed, in their Temple, the sacred Book of their laws, requested the 
High Priest of Jerusalem to send a number of the most learned men of 
that city down to Alexandria, for the purpose of translating the work 
into the Greek language. The Jews, being at that time the subjects of 
the King of Egypt, Eleazar the High Priest readily complied with 
Ptolemy's request ; and accordingly six men to represent each of the 
Israelitish Tribes were sent to Alexandria, and there remained until the 
important work was completed. This translation of the Scriptures is 
the one that our Saviour and his Apostles uniformly used in their minis- 
trations, and it received its name from the number of men engaged in 
preparing it. The work was doubtless familiar to Theocritus and the 
other Greek poets of the Alexandrian court ; and the Song of Solomon 
attracting their particular attention, and being peculiarly in accordance 
with Grecian fancy, soon became a model for their own compositions : 



EPITHALAMIUM OF HELEN. 

FROM THE EIGHTEENTH IDYL. 

In Sparta once the nuptial chorus flow'd, 
"Where Menelaus, yellow-hair'd, abode: 
Twelve virgins, noblest of the city, there 
Braided with blooming hyacinth their hair: 
The pride of all the Spartan maids were they, 
"Who to the painted chamber raised the lay. 
"Where Atreus' younger son the damsel bore, 
The bride, dear Helen, and had closed the door ; 



THEOCRITUS. 177 

They in one strain brake sweetly forth ; and beat 

Lightly the ground with intertwining feet. 

The mansion echoed from its roof around 

The wedding song, with hymeneal sound: 

'Dost thou, dear bridegroom ! to thy chamber flee 

In twilight eve, and weary bows thy knee? 

Slumber thy eye-lids? art thou bathed in wine, 

That early thus, thy limbs in rest recline ? 

Thou might'st have rested at more timely hour, 

And left the virgin in her mother's bower, 

To sport, a maiden with her fellow maids, 

Till day-break glimmer'd through the twilight shades. 

For thine at eve, at morn, her bridal charms, 

And gliding years shall find her in thine arms. 

Oh happy bridegroom ! when thy feet had stood 

On Spartan soil, where rival princes wooed; 

Some sneeze, well-omen'd, met thee on thy way 

The blest assurance of this blissful day. 
Rival to thee no demi-god may prove, 

Whose bride's great father is Saturnian Jove : 
Jove's beauteous daughter now reclines with thee, 
And rests between the self-same canopy. 
Like her no Grecian damsel treads on earth, 
And great, if like herself, shall prove her infant birth. 
Full three-score girls, in sportive flight we stray'd, 
Like youths anointing, where along the glade 
The bath of cool Eurotas limpid play'd. 
But none, of all, with Helen might compare, 
Nor one seem'd faultless of the fairest fair. 
As morn, with vermeil visage, looks from high, 
When solemn night has vanish'd suddenly; 
When winter melts, and frees the frozen hours, 
And spring's green bough is gemm'd with silvery flowers : 
So bloom'd the virgin Helen in our eyes, 
With full voluptuous limbs, and towering size : 
In shape, in height, in stately presence, fair, 
Straight as a furrow gliding from the share ; 
A cypress of the gardens, spiring high, 
A courser in the cars of Thessaly. 
So rose-complexion'd Helen charm'd the sight ; 
Our Sparta's grace, our glory, and delight. 
None with such art the basket at her side, 
The ne«dle's picturing threads, inventive, plied : 
So cross'd the woof ; the sliding shuttle threw ; 
And wove the web in variegated hue. 
Or when across the lyre her hand she flings, 
And Pallas, broad of breast, or Dian sings : 
None in the minstrel's craft with Helen vies, 
And all the Loves are laughing in her eyes. 
Oh fair ! oh graceful damsel ! but thy name 
Is now a matron's, and no more the same. 
We, by the dawnlight's blush, in bounding speed 
Will print the verdure of the leafy mead : 
12 



178 THEOCRITUS. [Lect. VII. 

And, in remembrance of our Helen, wreathe 
Chaplets of dewy flowers, that fragrant breathe; 
And long for thee, as longs the yearling lamb 
To drain the milky nectar of its dam. 
"We, first, a crown of creeping lotus twine, 
And on a shadowy plane suspend, as thine ; 
"We, first, beneath a shadowy plain distill 
From silver vase the balsam's liquid rill; 
Graved on the bark the passenger shall see, 
Adore me, Traveller 1 I am Helen's Tree V 

To the preceding extensive and important extracts from Theocritus' 
larger poems, we add the following epitaphs : 



ON ANACREON. ■ 

Strangers, who near this statue chance to roam, 
Let it awhile your studious eyes engage ; 

And you may say, returning to your home, 
'I've seen the image of the Teian sage — ' 

Best of the bards, who grace the Muses' page.' 
Then, if you add, ' Youth loved him passing well,' 

You tell them all he was, and aptly tell. 



OX EUSTHENES, THE PHYSIOGNOMIST. 

To Eusthenes, the first in wisdom's list, 
Philosopher and Physiognomist, 
This tomb is rais'd : he from the eye could scan 
The cover'd thought, and read the very man. 
By strangers was his decent bier adorn'd, 
By strangers honor'd, and by poets mourn'd : 
"Whate'er the Sophist merited he gain'd, 
And dead, a grave in foreign realms obtain'A 



ON THE STATUE OF ^ESCULAPIUS. 

The son of Paeon to Miletus came 
To meet his Nicias of illustrious name ; 
He in deep reverence of his guest divine, 
Deck'd with the daily sacrifice his shrine ; 
And of the god this cedar statue bought — 
A finished work, by skilled Eetion wrought. 
The sculptor, with a lavish sum repaid, 
Here all the wonders of his art display'd. 



ON A FRIEND DROWNED AT SEA. 

Risk not your life upon the wintery sea; 
"With all his care man's life must fragile be 



295A.C.] A RAT US. 179 

My Cleonicus sped from Syria's shore 
To wealthy Thasos, and rich cargo bore; — 
Ah ! passing rich : — but as the Pleiad's light 
In ocean set, he with them sank in night. 



ON EURYMEDON. 

Thine early death, ah! brave Eurymedon, 
Hath made an orphan of thine infant son ; 
For thee, this tomb thy grateful country rears ; 
For him she bids thee calm a parent's fears; — 
Secure, thy rest do thou with heroes take — 
He shall be honor'd for his father's sake. 



ON HIPPONAX, THE SATIRIST. 

Here lies Hipponax, to the Muses dear. 
Traveller ! if conscience sting, approach not near ! 
But if sincere of heart, and free from guile, 
Here boldly sit, and even sleep awhile. 

Aratus, the friend and associate of Theocritus, was born at Soli, or at 
tarsus, in Asia Minor, about 295 A.C. He was brought up to the 
medical profession, and attained to a sufficient degree of eminence in it 
to become physician to Antigonus Gronatas, king of Macedonia. His 
genius, however, strongly inclined him to poetry ; and he, therefore, soon 
abandoned his profession, with all its prospective advantages, and thence- 
forth devoted himself entirely to the Muses. 

Macedonia was not, however, at that time in a condition properly to 
appreciate eminent poetic genius ; and Aratus, therefore, with many 
other contemporary bards, sought the more congenial atmosphere of the 
Egyptian court, and there his eminence as a poet was at once recognized, 
and he became intimately associated with the wits, whom Ptolemy's 
munificence had drawn around him. Like Lycophron, Theocritus, and 
his other associates, his life presents, from the time of his settlement in 
Alexandria, few incidents of importance ; and doubtless it glided along 
amid the same luxurious habits which marked the course of all the 
geniuses under the patronage of the Alexandrian monarch. The period 
of his death is unknown ; but he is supposed by Suidas to have returned, 
in-advanced life, to Macedonia, and there to have ended his days. 

Of the various works of Aratus an astronomical poem, entitled l T/ie 
Phenomenal was by far the most distinguished ; and indeed this poem 
breathes a spirit of elevated purity, to be accounted for only on the sup- 
position that the pure poetic spirit of the Old Testament poetry had now 
begun to exert a marked influence upon the minds of the Alexandrian 



180 ARATUS. [Lect. VII 

poets, ' The Phenomena' was so highly esteemed by the Romans, that it 
was first translated into the Latin language by the celebrated orator Cicero, 
some of whose version is still extant, and afterwards by Germanicus, the 
grandson of the emperor Augustus. The poem itself is simple and un- 
artificial, and contains little more than the names of the constellations, 
and their order, as painted on the celestial globe, and the several appear- 
ances of the moon and stars, as indicative of atmospheric changes; 
though when the author digresses to general nature, and particularly to 
the instincts of animals, he displays not merely accurate observation, but 
the faculty of coloring objects, possessed only by the true poet. 

To have been translated by so eminent a genius as Cicero, is certainly 
as high an honor as any Grecian poet could have anticipated ; but a 
higher one awaited Aratus ; for it was from him that St. Paul, in his 
oration before the Athenians on Mar's Hill, quoted, when he exclaimed, 
' For in Him we live, and move, and have our being, as certain of your 
own poets have said ; for we are also his offspring.' Besides his astron- 
omical poem, Aratus wrote various hymns and inscriptions, none of which, 
however, seem ever to have attained a sufficient degree of celebrity to 
make them an object of preservation by his successors. We shall, there- 
fore, give only the two following extracts : 



PROEM TO THE PHENOMENA. 

From Jove begin ray song ; nor ever be 

The name unutter'd : all are full of thee ; 

The ways, and haunts of men ; the heavens and the sea. 

On thee our being hangs ; in thee we move ; 

All are thy offspring, and the seed of Jove. 

Benevolent, he warns mankind to good, 

Urges to toil, and prompts the hope of food. 

He shows when best the yielding glebe will bear 

The goaded oxen, and the cleaving share. 

He shows what seasons smile, to delve the plain. 

To set the plant, or sow the scatter'd grain. 

'Twas he that placed those glittering signs on high, 

Those stars, dispers'd throughout the circling sky ; 

From these the seasons and the times appear, 

The labors, and the harvests of the year. 

Hence men to him their thankful homage raise, 

Him, first and last, their theme of joy and praise; 

Hail, Father ! wondrous ! whence all blessings spring 1 

Thyself the source of every living thing ! 

Oh of mellifluous voice ! ye Muses, hear ! 

And if my prayer may win your gracious ear, 

Tour inspiration, all ye Muses, bring, 

And aid my numbers, while the stars I sing. 



295A.C.] A RAT US. 181 



PROGNOSTICS OF WEATHER. 

Be this the sign of wind : with rolling sweep 

High swells the sea; long roarings echo deep 

From billow-breaking rocks; shores murmur shrill, 

Though calm from storm, and howls the topmost hill 

The heron with unsteady motion flies, 

And shoreward hastes, with loud and piercing cries ; 

Borne o'er the deep, his flapping pinions sail, 

While air is ruffled by the rising gale. 

The coots, that wing through air serene their way, 

'Gainst coming winds condense their close array. 

The diving cormorants and wild-ducks stand, 

And shake their dripping pinions on the sand: 

And oft, a sudden cloud is seen to spread, 

With length'ning shadow, o'er the mountain's head. 

By downy-blossom'd plants, dishevelled strown, 

And hoary thistles' tops, is wind foreshown : 

When those behind impelling those before, 

On the still sea they slowly float to shore. 

Watch summer thunder break, or lightnings fly, 

Wind threatens from that quarter of the sky ; 

And, where the shooting stars, in gloomy night, 

Draw through the heavens a track of snowy light, 

Expect the coming wind ; but, if in air 

The meteors cross, shot headlong here and there, 

From various points, observe the winds arise, 

And thwarting blasts blow diverse from the skies. 

When lightnings in the jiorth and south appear, 

And east and west, the mariner should fear 

Torrents of air, and foamings of the main; 

These numerous lightnings flash o'er floods of rain. 

And oft when showers are threat'ning from on high, 

The clouds, like fleeces, hang beneath the sky: 

Girding heaven's arch, a double rainbow bends, 

Or, round some star, a black'ning haze extends. 

The birds of marsh, or sea, insatiate lave, 

And deeply plunge, with longings for the wave. 

Swift o'er the pool the fluttering swallows rove, 

And beat their breasts the baffled lake above. 

Hoarse croak the fathers of the reptile brood, 

Of gliding water-snakes the fearful food : 

At break of day, the desert-haunting owl 

Lengthens from far her solitary howl: 

The clamoring crow is perch'd, where high the shore 

With jutting cliff o'erhangs the ocean roar ; 

Or with dipp'd head the river wave divides, 

Dives whole-immers'd, or cawing skims the tides. 

Nor less the herds for coming rain prepare, 

And skyward look, and snuff the showery air. 

On walls the slimy-creeping snails abound, 

And earth-worms trail their length, the entrails of the ground 



182 DIOTIMUS.— ASCLEPIADES. [Lect. VII. 

The cock's young brood ply oft the pluming bill, 

And chirp, as drops from eaves on tinkling drops distil. 

A passing notice of the contemporaries of Theocritus and Aratus, 
Diotimus, Asclepiacles, Pluedimus, Nicias, and the two poetesses, Nossis 
and Anyte — will close our present remarks. 

Diotimus was a grammarian of Adramyttium, in Mysia, and followed 
the profession of a teacher at Gargara in the Troad — a hard lot, which 
his friend Aratus bemoans in an epigram still extant. Little more is 
known of his history than that he left behind him a very important Com- 
mon Place Book, and was an extensive writer of such epigrams as the 
following : 



ON A FLUTE-PLAYER. 

Man's hopes are spirits with fast-fleeting wings. 

See where in death our hopeful Lesbus lies ! 
Lesbus is dead, the favorite of kings ! 

Hail light-wing'd Hopes, ye swiftest deities ! 
On his cold tomb we carve a voiceless flute, 
For Pluto hears not, and the grave is mute. 

Asclepiades was a native of the island of Samos, and was an epigram- 
matic writer of much celebrity. He was the friend, and by some critics is 
supposed to have been the teacher of Theocritus ; but the evidence given 
to sustain this idea is not at all conclusive. The following specimens 
fairly present the general spirit of his epigrams : — 

ON THE PICTURE OF BERENICE. 

This form is Cytherea's — nay 

'Tis Berenice's I protest ; 
So like to both, you safely may 

Give it to either you like best. 

ON HESIOD. 

Sweet bard of Ascra! on thy youthful head 
The Muses erst their laurel-branches spread, 
When on the rugged summits of the rocks 
They saw thee laid amidst thy sultry flocks. 
E'en then to thee, o'er fair Castalia's wave, 
Their sacred powers unbounded empire gave. 
By this inspired, thy genius soared on high, 
And ranged the vaulted azure of the sky ; 
With joy transported, viewed the blest abodes, 
And sang the extatic raptures of the gods. 






295A.C.] PH.EDIMUS.— NICIAS. 183 

Phaedimus, according to Stephanus, was a native of Bisanthe, in Mace- 
donia ; and though, professedly an epigrammatic poet, he was, according 
to Athenseus, the author of an important epic poem entitled Heraclei. 
Four of his epigrams are preserved in the Greek Anthology ; and his 
verses have a place in the G-arland of Meleager also. The following 
elegy is, perhaps, the most complete of his remains : 



HEROIC LOVE. 

This bow that erst the earth-born dragon slew, 

mighty God of Day, restrain ! 
Not now those deadly shafts are due 

That stretch the woodland tyrants on the plain. 
Rather, Phcebus, bring thy nobler darts, 
"With which thou piercest gentle hearts — 
Bid them Themistio's breast inspire 
"With Love's bright flame and Valor's holy fire : 
Pure Valor, firm, heroic Love — 
Twin deities, supreme o'er gods above, 
United in the sacred cause 
Of his dear native land and freedom's laws. 
So let him win the glorious crown 
His fathers wore — bright meed of fair renown. 



Nicias, an epigrammatic writer, of whom nothing more is now, however, 
known than that he flourished at this period, and that he was the friend 
to whom Theocritus addressed his eleventh and thirteenth idyls. He is 
supposed to have been a native of Miletus, in Asia Minor; and from his 
intimacy with Theocritus, it is conjectured that he passed some part of 
his life at the court of Alexandria. The first of the two following epi- 
grams is a beautiful conceit. The nymph of the fountain, by the side of 
which Simus had erected a monument to his child, is supposed to utter 
the following plaintive language to the passer-by : 



ON THE TOMB OF AN INFANT. 

Stay, weary traveller, stay ! 

Beneath these boughs repose ! 
A step out of the way, 

My little fountain flows. 
And never quite forget 

The monumental urn, 
"Which Simus here hath set 

His buried child to mourn. 



1S4 ROSSIS.— ANYTE. [Lect. YIL 



THE BEE. 

Many-colored, sunshine-loving, spring-betokening bee! 
Yellow bee, so mad for love of early-blooming flowers- 
Till thy waxen cell be full, fair fall thy work and thee, 
Buzzing round the sweetly-smelling garden plots and bowers. 

Nossis, a Greek poetess, was of a little earlier date than the poets last 
noticed. She was a native of Locri, in southern Italy, and flourished 
about 310 A. C. Of her poems twelve epigrams of considerable beauty 
still remain ; but from these all we can learn of her history is, that her 
mother's name was Theuphila, and that she had a daughter called, in the 
following inscription, Melinna : 



ON AN IMAGE OF HER DAUGHTER. 

In this loved stone Melinna's self I trace, 

'Tis her's that form, 'tis her's that speaking face 

How like her mother's! Oh what joy to see 
Ourselves reflected in our progeny ! 



LOVE. 

What in life is half so sweet 
As the hour when lovers meet ? 
Not the joys that fortune pours 
Nor Hymettus' fragrant stores. 
Thus says Nossis — Whosoe'er 
Venus takes not to her care, 
Never shall the roses know 
In her blooming bowers that grow. 



ON THE PICTURE OF THYMARETE. 

On yonder tablet graved I see 
The form of my Thymarete, — 
Her gracious smile, her lofty air, 
Warm as in life, all blended there. 
Her little fondled dog, that keeps 
Still watch around her while she sleeps, 
Would in that shape his mistress trace, 
And fawning, lick her honored face. 

Anyte, of Tegea, in Arcadia, is numbered among the lyric poets by 
Meleager, in whose list she stands first, and by Antipater of Thessaionica, 
who names her with Praxilla, Myro, and Sappho, and calls her the female 






800A.C.] ANYTE. 185 

Homer — an epithet used either in reference to the martial spirit of some 
of her epigrams, or to their antique character. Her epigrams are, for 
the most part, in the style of the ancient Doric choral songs, like the 
poems of Alcman ; and for this reason we should be inclined to place her 
at a much earlier period than the date assigned her by Tatian, which is 
300 A.C. At whatever period, however, Anyte may have lived, her epi- 
grams, as will be perceived from the following, are both spirited and beau- 
tiful in the extreme : 



ON THE ENTRANCE TO A CAVERN. 

Stranger, beneath this rock thy limbs bestow — 
Sweet, 'mid the green leaves, breezes whisper here. 

Drink the cool wave, while noontide fervors glow ; 
For such the rest to wearied pilgrims dear. 



ON A GROVE OF LAUREL. 

"Whoe'er thou art, recline beneath the shade, 
By never-fading leaves of laurel made; 
And here awhile thy thirst securely slake, 
With the pure beverage of the crystal lake : 
So shall your languid limbs, by toil oppress'd, 
And summer's burning heat, find needful rest, 
And renovation from the balmy power 
That stirs and breathes within this verdant bower. 



ON A DOLPHIN CAST ASHORE. 

No more exulting o'er the buoyant sea, 
High shall I raise my head, in gambols free : 
Nor by some gallant ship breathe out the air, 
Pleased with my own bright image figured there. 
The storm's black mist has forced me to the land, 
And laid me lifeless on this couch of sand. 



ON A STATUE OF VENUS. 

NEAR THE SEA COAST. 

Cythera from this craggy steep 
Looks downward on the glassy deep, 
And hither calls, the breathing gale, 
Propitious to the venturous sail; 
"While ocean flows beneath, serene, 
Awed by the smile of beauty's queen. 



136 



ANYTE. 



[Leot. VIL 



ON THE YOUNG VIRGIN PHILLIDA. 

In this sad tomb where Phillida is laid, 
Her mother oft invokes the gentle shade, 
And calls, in hopeless grief, on her who died, 
In the full bloom of youth and beauty's pride j 
"Who left, a virgin, the bright realms of day, 
On gloomy Acheron's pale coasts to stray. 



ON THE MAID ANTIBIA. 



The maid Antibia I lament, for whom 
Full many a suitor sought her father's hall; 
For beauty, prudence, famed was she; but doom 
Destructive overwhelmed the hopes of all. 



tntntifyt <Bi g 

CALLIMACHUS.— APOLLONITJS RHODIUS.— LEONIDES.— CLEANTHES. 

— RHIANUS.— ANTAGORAS.— NICiENETUS.— DIOSCO- 

RIDES.— CUPHORION.— DAMAGETES. 

CALLIMACHUS the writer who next demands our attention, was, ac- 
cording to Suidas, the son of Battus and Mesatme, emigrants from At- 
tica to Cyrene, a Grecian Colony on the northern coast of Africa, and was 
there born a bout 295 A.C. The family of the Battiadse soon rose to such 
eminence at Cyrene as to hold the first rank amongst its citizens ; and 
hence Ovid and other poets frequently call our author simply Battiades. 

Callimachus was educated by the celebrated grammarian Hermocrates, 
and after he had completed his studies he opened a school in his native 
place, but soon removed to Eleasis, a suburb of Alexandria, where he 
taught successfully for many years, and had for his pupils, Eratosthenes, 
Pilostephanus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Ister, Hermippus, and Apol- 
lonius Rhodius. 

Having successfully followed his profession for many years, and by it 
acquired both eminence and distinction, Callimachus now began to feel 
an ardent desire to present himself before the literati of Alexandria in 
the capacity of poet — an art which he had for many years sedulously cul- 
tivated. The overwhelming influence and popularity, however, of the 
many eminent court poets, precluded the possibility of placing himself 
before the public under circumstances that would, in any degree, warrant 
the hope of success, until the following incident occurred — the invitation 
of the king to celebrate the dedication of Berenice's hair to Venus — an 
invitation which embraced not only the wits of the court, but also all other 
wits of the city and its vicinity. 

Euergetes had now succeeded Philadelphus on the throne of Egypt ; 
and as the provinces of Phoenicia and Palestine embraced this opportu- 
nity to attempt to throw off the Egyptian yoke, he wished to lose no time 
in invading and subduing them. At the same time Berenice, his queen, 
through the ardor of her attachment to the king, and her anxiety for his 
success, vowed that should the expedition prove successful, she would, on 
the king's return to Egypt, dedicate her hair to Venus. The expedition 
proving successful, the dedication was accordingly made ; and in order 



188 CALLIMACHUS. L Le ct. VIH 

that the occurrence might assume an aspect of the utmost importance, the 
astronomers "of the court were directed to place the hair in the heavens as 
a constellation ; and hence the origin of the constellation Berenice. 

Lest, however, the transfer of the hair to the heavens should not create 
a source of sufficiently vivid recollection for the self-sacrificing act of the 
queen, the king ordered that the poets of the court should celebrate the 
same event in the strains of immortal verse ; and the invitation, as al- 
ready observed, including other poets as well as those identified with the 
court, Callimachus at once entered the list, and so complete was his triumph 
over all his competitors, that Ptolemy immediately invited him to abandon 
his school, repair to court, and become Royal Librarian. Thus having attain- 
ed the height of his ambition, the schoolmaster thenceforth became merged 
in the royal poet and courtier, and in this situation Callimachus remained 
from 266 A.C., until his death, which occurred about twenty years afterwards. 

Callimachus was one of the most distinguished grammarians, critics, 
and poets of the Alexandrian period, and his celebrity surpassed that of 
nearly all the other Alexandrian scholars and poets. He was, also, one of 
the most fertile writers of all antiquity, and if the number mentioned by 
Suidas be correct, he was the author of nearly eight hundred works, 
though doubtless most of them were not of great extent, if he followed 
one of his own maxims, — that a great book was equal to a great evil. The 
number of his works of which the titles or fragments are now known, 
amounts to upwards of forty. But what we possess is very little, and con- 
sists principally of poetical productions, apparently the least valuable of 
all his works ; since, according to the general opinion of the' ancients, 
Callimachus, notwithstanding his exalted poetic reputation, was not a man 
of real poetical talent ; but acquired his great skill in poetry, through his 
extensive learning and intense labor. His prose works on the contrary, 
which would have furnished us with much highly important information 
concerning ancient mythology, history, and literature, are entirely lost. 

The poetical productions of Callimachus, still extant, are Hymns, Epi- 
grams, and Elegies. Of his hymns, six in number, five are written in 
hexameter verse, and in the Ionic dialect, and one, on the bath of Pallas, 
in distichs, and in the Doric dialect. These hymns bear greater resem- 
blance to epic than to lyric poetry, and are the productions of great 
labor and learning, like most of the poems of that period. They are 
very valuable, however, as almost every line furnishes some curious 
mythological information, and are loaded, to a greater extent, with 
learning, than any other poetical productions of that age. The epigrams 
of Callimachus, seventy-three in number, furnish the best specimens of 
that kind of poetry extant. The high estimation they enjoyed in 
antiquity is attested by the fact, that Archibius, the grammarian, who 
lived not more than one generation after the age of their author, wrote a 
commentary upon them ; and Marianus, in the reign of the emperor 



295A.C] CALLIMACHUS. 189 

Anastasius, wrote a paraphrase of them in Iambics. They were early 
incorporated in the Greek Anthology, and have been thus preserved. 
The three elegies of our author are all lost, with the exception of some 
fragments ; but there are frequent imitations of them found among the 
Roman poets. Indeed, if we may believe the Roman critics, Callimachus 
was the greatest elegiac poet that Greece produced ; and Ovid, Propertius, 
and Catullus took him for their model in this species of poetry. 

Callimachus was the author of various other poetical works besides 
those already alluded to, among which were two epic poems ; but all of 
them have perished excepting a few fragments. The first of these epics was 
divided into four books, and treated of the causes of the various mythical 
stories, religious ceremonies, and other prevailing customs. The work is 
often referred to, and was paraphrased by Marianus ; but the paraphrase 
is entirely lost, and of the original we have only a few fragments. The 
author took for its subject the name of an old woman who had re- 
ceived Theseus hospitably when he went out to fight against the Maratho- 
nian bull. This work was likewise paraphrased by Marianus, and we 
still possess some fragments of the original. Two other of his poems, 
the names of which have descended to us, were also probably epics ; but 
of their character we have no definite information. From all accounts it 
appears that there was scarcely any kind of poetry in which Callimachus 
did not try his strength ; for he is said by Suidas to have written come- 
dies, tragedies, Iambic and Choliambic poems. 

Of the numerous and various prose works of Callimachus, not one is 
extant, though there were among them some of the highest importance. 
The one of which the loss is most to be lamented, was a comprehensive 
history of Greek literature. It contained, systematically arranged, lists 
of the different authors and their works. The various departments of 
literature "appear to have been classified, so that Callimachus spoke of 
the comic and tragic poets, of the orators, law-givers, philosophers, his- 
torians, and various others, in separate books, in which the authors were 
enumerated in their chronological succession. It is supposed that this 
great work was a part of the fruit of the author's studies in the libraries 
of Alexandria, and that it mainly recorded those authors whose works 
were contained in those vast collections. To his many other prose works 
we have not space to particularly allude. 

We shall close our remarks on this distinguished author, with his 
■ Hymn on the Bath of Minerva,' and a few fine epigrams : 

HYMN ON THE BATH OF MINERVA. 

Come, all ye virgins of the bath ! come forth, 
Ye handmaids of Minerva! for I hear 
The neighing of the sacred steeds : e'en now 
The goddess is at hand. Haste, hasten forth, 



290 CALLIMACHTJS. 

Plaids of the yellow locks, Pelasgian maids ! 

Ne'er does Minerva lave her ample limbs, 

Till from the loins of those her smoking steeds 

She cleanse the dust away ; nor yet returns 

Her weapons all with dust and gore denied, 

From slaughter of that impious, earth-born brood, 

But first, at distance, loosens from the car 

Her courser's necks, and bathes in ocean's waves 

Their dropping sweat, and from their bitted mouth 

Clears the coagulated foam away. 

Go forth, Achaean maids ! nor let your hands — 

(I hear the rattling sound of ringing wheels) — 

Let not your hands bear ointments, nor the vase 

Of alabaster : Pallas takes not joy 

In mingled ointments. Nor the mirror bring, 

For still Minerva's brow is beautiful. 

Nor yet, when Paris, on the mount of Ide, 

Sate arbiter of beauty, did she look 

Upon the polish'd brass ; nor on the stream 

Of Simois, in transparent dimples roll'd; 

Nor Juno Bought the mirror, nor the stream; 

While Venus took the polish'd brass, and gaz'd, 

Arranging, o'er and o'er, the self-same locks: 

But Pallas, nimbly running in her speed, 

Compass'd a circuit, like the racing youths, 

Twin stars of Sparta, on Eurotas, banks, 

Pollux and Castor. Then, with practis'd art, 

Her limbs anointed with the fragrant oil 

Of her own olive-yards. Oh virgin ! then 

The color of the morning flush' d once more 

Thy cheeks ; the hue, that blushes on the rose, 

Or tints the peach. Now, now that manlier oil 

Bring hither, maidens ! such as Castor used, 

And Hercules; and bring a golden comb, 

That she may draw her length'ning tresses down, 

And smooth her glossy hair. Come goddess forth! 

A pleasing band awaits thee: virgins sprung 

From great Ancestor's tribe. To thee the shield 

Of Diomed is borne in custom'd rite, 

Which thy loved priest, Eumedes, taught of yore. 

He, when the plotting multitude devised 

The stratagems of death, fled, clasping close 

Thy hallow'd image: to the Crean mount 

He fled, and placed it on the steepy rocks, 

Named thence Palladian. Come, Minerva, forth! 

City-destroyer ! golden-helm'd ! who lovest 

The din of neigliing steeds, and clashing shields ! 

This day, ye water-bearing damsels, draw, 

From fountains only, and forbear the streams : 

This day, ye hand-maids, dip your urns in springs 

Of Physidea, or the limpid well 

Of Anymone: for from mountains green 



295A.C] CALLIMACHUS. 191 

With pasture shall th' Inachian river roll 
A goodly bath for Pallas ; mingling gold, 
And flowrets, with its waters. But beware . 
Pelasgian ! lest thy undesigning glance 
Surprise the queen Minerva. He that views 
The naked form of Pallas, with last look 
Hath seen the towns of Argos. Come then forth, 
August Minerva ! I meantime address 
These thy fair maids, in legendary lore; 
Not from myself; for others sang the tale. 
Maidens ! in times of old, Minerva loved 
A fair companion with exceeding love, 
The mother of Tiresias ; nor apart 
Lived they a moment. Whether she her steeds 
Drove to the Thespians old, or musky groves 
Of Coronsea, and Curalius' banks, 
That smoke with fragrant altars, or approach'd 
To Haliartus, and Bceotia's fields; 
Still in the chariot by her side she placed 
The nymph Chariclo ; nor the prattlings sweet, 
Nor dances of the nymphs, to her were sweet, 
Unless Chariclo spoke, or led the dance. 
Yet for the nymph Chariclo was reserved 
A store of tears ; for her, the favor'd nymph, 
The pleasing partner of Minerva's hours. 
For once, on Helicon, they loosed the clasps, 
That held their flowing robes, and bathed their limbs 
In Hippocrene, that, beauteous, glided by; 
While noonday stillness wrapp'd the mountain round. 
Both laved together ; 'twas the time of noon ; 
And deep the stilly silence of the mount. 
When with his dogs of chase, Tiresias trod 
The sacred haunt. The darkening down just bloom'd 
Upon his cheek. With thirst unutterable 
Panting, he sought that fountain's gushing stream, 
Unhappy; and, involuntary, saw 
What mortal eyes, not blameless, may behold. 
Minerva, though incensed, thus pitying spoke : 
'Who to this luckless spot conducted thee, 
Oh son of Everus ! who sightless hence 
Must needs depart!' she said, and darkness fell 
On the youth's eyes, astonished where he stood : 
A shooting anguish all his nerves benumb'd, 
And consternation chain'd his murmuring tongue. 
Then shriek'd the nymph ; 'What, goddess, has thou done 
To this my child ? are these the tender acts 
Of goddesses ? thou hast bereaved of eyes 
My «on. Oh miserable child ! thy gaze 
Has glanced upon the bosom and the shape 
Of Pallas ; but the sun thou must behold 
No more. Oh miserable me! oh shades 
Of Helicon ! oh mountain, that my steps 



192 CALLIMACHUS. [Leot. VIIL 

Shall ne'er again ascend! for small offence 
Monstrous atonement ! thou art 'well repaid 
For some few straggling goats and hunted deer 
With my son's eyes !' the nymph then folded close, 
With both her arms, her son so dearly loved; 
And utter'd lamentation, with shrill voice, 
And plaintive, like the mother nightingale. 
The goddess felt compassion for the nymph, 
The partner of her soul, and softly said : 
4 Retract, divinest woman ! what thy rage, 
Erring, has utter'd. 'Tis not I, that smite 
Thy son with blindness. Pallas hath no joy 
To rob from youths the lustre of their eyes. 
The laws of Saturn this decree. Whoe'er 
Looks on the being of immortal race, 
Unless the willing god consent, must look, 
Thus at his peril, and atoning pay 
The dreadful penalty. This act of fate, 
Divinest woman! may not be recall'd. 
So spun the Destinies his mortal thread, 
When thou didst bear him. Son of Everus 1 
Take then thy portion. But what hecatombs 
Shall Aristaeus and Autonoe, 
Hereafter on the smoking altars lay, 
So that the youth Actseon, their sad son, 
Might be but blind like thee? for know that youth 
Shall join the great Diana in the chase ; 
Yet, not the chase, nor darts in common thrown, 
Shall save him; when his undesigning glance 
Discerns the goddess in her loveliness 
Amidst the bath. His own unconscious dogs 
Shall tear their master, and his mother cull 
His scatter'd bones, wild-wandering through the woods. 
That mother, nymph! shall call thee blest, who now 
Receivest from the mount thy sightless son. 
Oh, weep no more, companion! for thy sake 
I yet have ample recompense in store 
For this thy son. Behold! I bid him rise 
A prophet: far o'er every seer renown'd 
To future ages. He shall read the flights 
Of birds, and know whatever on the wing 
Hovers auspicious, or ill-omen'd flies, 
Or void of auspice. Many oracles 
To the Boeotians shall his tongue reveal; 
To Cadmus, and the great Labdacian tribe. 
I will endow him with a mighty staff, 
To guide his steps aright ; and I will give 
A lengthen'd boundary to his mortal life ; 
And, when he dies, he only, midst the dead, 
Shall dwell inspir'd, and honor'd by that king 
Who rules the shadowy people of the grave.' 
She spoke, and gave the nod ; what Pallas wills 



CALLIMACHUS, 



193 



Is sure; in her of all his daughters, Jove 

Bade all the glories of her father shine. 

Maids of the bath ! no mother brought her forth ; 

Sprung from the head of Jove. Whate'er the head 

Of Jove, inclining, ratifies, the same 

Stands firm; and thus his daughter's nod is fate. 

She comes ! in very truth, Minerva comes ! 
Receive the goddess, damsels ! ye, whose hearts, 
"With tender ties, your native Argos binds, 
Receive the goddess ! with exulting hails, 
"With vows, and shouts. Hail, goddess ! oh, protect 
Inachian Argos ! hail ! and, when thou turn'st 
Thy coursers hence, or hitherward again 
Guidest thy chariot-wheels, oh ! still preserve 
The fortunes of the race from Danaus sprung ! 



ON HERACLITUS. 

They told me, Heraelitus, thou wert dead; 
And then I thought, and tears thereon did shed, 
How oft we two talked down the sun ; but thou, 
Halicarnassian guest ! art ashes now. 
Yet live thy nightingales of song ; on those 
All-plundering Death shall ne'er his hand impose. 



THE DEATH OF CLEOMBROTUS. 

Cleombrotus, upon the rampart's height 

Bade the bright sun farewell; then plunged to night. 

The cares of life were yet to him unknown ; 

Glad were his hours, his sky unclouded shone ; 

But Plato's reason caught his youthful eye, 

And fixed his soul on immortality. 



ON A BROTHER AND SISTER. 

"We buried him at dawn of day: 
Ere set of sun his sister lay 

Self-slaughter'd by his side. 
Poor Basilc ! she could not bear 
Longer to breathe the vital air, 
"When Melanippus died. 

Thus in one fatal hour was left, 
Of both a parent's hopes bereft, 

Their desolated sire; 
"While all Cyrene mourned to see 
The blossoms of her stateliest tree 

By one fell blight expire. 

13 



19 4 A POLL ON I US. [Lect. VIIL 

THE CHASE. 

Mark, Epicydes, how the hunter bears 

His honors in the chase — when timid hares 

And noblest stags he tracks through frost and snow, 

O'er mountains echoing to the vales below. 

Then if some clown halloos — • Here, master, here 

Lies pantiDg at your feet the stricken deer !' — 

He takes no heed, but starts for newer game : 

Such is my love, and such his arrow's aim, ' 

That follows still with speed the flying fair, 

But deems the yielding slave below his care. 

Apollonius Rhodius, one of the pupils of Callimachus at Alexandria, 
was the son of Silleus and Rhode, and was a native of Naucratis in 
Egypt ; but the exact period of his birth is uncertain. He flourished, 
however, during the reigns of Ptolemy Euergetes, who ascended the 
throne 247 A.C., and his two successors Philopator and Epiphanes, the 
last of whom died 181 A.C., when Apollonius was far advanced in age. 

The ambition of Apollonius' parents early evinced itself in the anxiety 
they manifested for his education — they having sent him, when a mere 
child, to Alexandria, to enjoy the advantages of Callimachus' instruction. 
The youth soon so eminently distinguished himself as to become an ob- 
ject of deep interest, not only to his parents and instructor, but to the 
entire circle of his friends ; and the flattering notice taken of the early 
efforts of his muse, so inflated his young and ambitious mind, that, before 
he had reached the age of maturity, he resolved to present himself as a 
poetic competitor of his distinguished master, Callimachus. This circum- 
stance induces the inference that the family of Apollonius must have 
been of great eminence, or he could not have been led to place himself in 
so important, and, apparently, arrogant position. 

For this trial of skill Apollonius produced Tlie Argonautica, an epic 
poem in four books, on the Argonautic expedition. The poem, however, 
was evidently written in haste, and though many passages were ex- 
tremely beautiful, yet, as a whole, it was deficient in that unity of plan, 
and fulness of characteristic development, afterwards imparted to it ; it 
consequently failed of success. This failure so mortified the youthful 
ambition of the author, that he immediately left Egypt, and retired to 
the island of Rhodes, where he soon after opened a school of Rhetoric I 
and Polite Literature. Youthful as he was, his scholastic eminence had 
preceded him to that island, and the Rhodians therefore were prepared 
to give him a welcome, and even a very warm reception. Aided by the 
fame of the school of Callimachus, his professional success was so marked 
and so flattering that he soon found himself in such circumstances as 
enabled him to give the time and the attention to the revision of ' The 
Argonautica' which it required, and for which additional years, increased! 
knowledge, and a matured judgment, had eminently prepared him. Hav- 






285A.C.] APOLLONIUS. 195 

ing completed the task of revision and reconstruction, he recited the poem 
in a public assembly of the Rhodians, and with the work they were so 
much delighted that they immediately conferred upon the author the 
freedom of the city, and gave him the appellation of Rhodius — an appel- 
lation which he ever afterwards bore. 

The fame which Apollonius Rhodius thus acquired abroad soon ex- 
tended to his native country, and he was at once invited by the king to 
return thither, and become one of the court poets. Delicacy, however, for 
some time, retrained him from accepting the invitation; for Callimachus 
was not only yet living, but still held the important position of librarian 
to the king ; and he feared the spirit of rivalry which he himself had 
kindled up in the mind of his former teacher might militate against his 
advancement ; he therefore declined the invitation. Callimachus, how- 
ever, soon after died, and was succeeded as librarian by Eratosthenes ; and 
as the poetic and literary reputation of Apollonius had meantime 
greatly increased, he now felt at liberty to return to Egypt in accordance 
with the king's request, and make Alexandria his permanent abode. Soon 
after his removal into Egypt, Eratosthenes died, and the place of Royal 
Librarian being thus again vacated, Apollonius was at once appointed to fill 
the vacancy; and in that exalted station he continued during the remainder 
of his life, and at his death was buried in the same tomb with Callimachus. 

{ The Argonautica' gives a direct and simple description of the expedi- 
tion of the Argonauts, and in a strain that is equal throughout. The 
episodes, which are not numerous, and contain particular mythuses, or de- 
scriptions of countries, are often very beautiful, and give life and color to 
•the whole poem. The character of Jason, the hero, is not sufficiently 
developed to engage the interest of the reader. The character of Medea, 
the heroine, on the other hand, is beautifully drawn, and the gradual 
growth of her love for Jason, is described with a truly artistic moderation. 
Hence much the finest parts of the poem are those passages which delin- 
eate the attachment between Medea and Jason ; and we may here remark 
that Virgil was so sensible of the beauty and sweetness of the character 
of Medea, that his own Dido is not only copied from it, but is, in reality, 
a very faint imitation of the original. 

As a work of art the Argonautica is strictly an epic poem, and though 
the style is not sufficiently elevated for the subject, yet it possesses the 
second great characteristic of the epic, which is tenderness — grandeur or 
sublimity being the first. The language is an imitation of that of Homer, 
but is more brief and concise, and has all the symptoms of something 
which is studied and not natural to the poet. The Argonautica, in real- 
ity, is a work of art and labor, and thus forms, notwithstanding its many 
resemblances, a striking contrast with the natural and easy flow of the 
Homeric poems. On its first publication the Argonautica was extremely 



!96 APOLLONIUS. [Lect. YIII. 

popular amongst the Greeks, and was afterwards much read by the Ro- 
mans. Though the entire poem is still extant, we have only space for 
the following brief extracts : 



SAILING OF THE ARGO. 

Now, when the morning, with her shining eyes, 

Look'd forth on Pelion's lofty crags, and far 

The verge serene of Ocean, rippling, dash'd 

"With sound of breaking waves, as the fresh wind 

Ruffled the sea ; then Tiphys waked and roused 

His friends, to climb the deck, and set their oars: 

Then with the wild din the Pagassean bay 

Re-echoed; and instructive sounds arose 

From Pelian Argo, hastening to depart: 

For Pallas, from Dodona's vocal oaks, 

Had in the keel infix'd a sacred beam. 

They climb'd the benches in their order'd ranks : 

Each rower's seat disposed by lot, and sate 

In fair array, their weapons ranged beside; 

Ancaeus in the midst; and in his strength, 

Huge Hercules ; his club beside him lean'd : 

Beneath his feet sank down the hollow keel. 

Then were the oars outstretch'd, and the sweet wine 

Was pour'd upon the surface of the sea; 

And Jason turn'd his eyes, that swam with tears, 

From his dear country's shores. As youths, that form 

The dances of Apollo, midst the groves 

Of Delphos, or in Delos' isle, or near 

Ismenus' wave, and to the chiming harp 

With rapid feet, elastic, strike the ground 

Circling his altar ; so to Orpheus' lyre 

They smote the turbid billows of the sea 

With cadenced oars. The ruffling surges dash'd; 

The dark brine leap'd in foam from side to side ; 

Deep murmuring to the strong impetuous strokes 

From men of might. As on the galley row'd, 

Their armor glitter'd in the sun like fire: 

The waves' long track froth'd whitening, and a path 

Of foam appear'd through the green watery plain : * 

And on that day lean'd all the gods from heaven 

To look upon the ship, and see the strength 

Of demi-gods, who there with valor high 

Travell'd the deep ; and from high Pelion's tops 

The nymphs gazed wondering down ; and saw the world 

Of Pallas, and th' heroic chiefs themselves 

Firm brandishing their oars with grasping hands. 

Chiron himself from the high mountain's head 

Came down beside the sea, and dipp'd his feet 

In the shore's billowy foam: with many a sign 



285A.C] APOLLONIUS. 197 

Waving his ponderous hand, and bidding them, 

With acclamation, happily return. 

His spouse beside him stood; and in her arms 

Dandled the babe of Peleus : showing him 

To his dear father. They, now, left behind 

The shore-encircled bay, by Tiphys' skill 

And prudence ; who with art still held his hand 

On the smooth rudder, guiding it secure. 

Then in the socket the rear'd mast they fix'd; 

And stretch'd the cordage, bound from side to side. 

Then spread the sails, and to the topmast strain'd: 

The wind fell whistling in their folds. Then fast 

Upon the decks they braced the tighten'd ropes 

To cramps of wood ; and, calmly gliding, pass'd 

Beyond Tisasum's promontory crag, 

Long stretching into ocean. Then with voice 

And harp, iEager's son tuned smooth the lay 

To high-born Dian, guardian of the ship, 

Who rules the mountain beacons of the sea, 

Protector of Iolchos. From the deep 

The fishes upward sprang ; the small and vast 

Of all the scaly tribe leap'd from beneath 

In bounds, and follow'd through the liquid track. 

As when th' innumerable sheep, now full 

Of pasture, follow in their leader's steps 

Back to the sheep-fold : he before them walks, 

Tuning on shrilling pipe a rustic lay ; 

So follow'd they, while fresher blew the gale. 



PASSION OF MEDEA. 

Amidst them all, the sun of iEson, chief, 

Shone forth divinely in his comeliness, 

And graces of his form. On him the maid 

Held still her eyes askance, and gazed him o'er 

Through her transparent-glistening veil; while grief 

Consum'd her heart, her mind, as in a dream, 

Slid stealthily away, and hovering hung 

On his departing footsteps. Sorrowing they 

Went from the palace forth. Chalciope, 

Dreading JSetes' anger, hastening pass'd 

Within her secret chamber, with her sons : 

And thus Medea went, her soul absorb'd 

In many musings, such as love incites 

Thoughts of deep care. Now all remember'd things 

In apparition rose before her eyes : 

What was his aspect ; what the robe he wore ; 

What words he utter'd; in what posture placed 

He on the couch reclined ; and with what air 

He from the porch pass'd forth. Then red the blush 

Burn'd on her cheek ; while in her soul she thought 

No other man existed like to him: 



19 8 APOLLONIUS. [Lkct. VIIL 

His voice was murmuring in her ears, and all 

The charming words he utter'd. Now, disturb'd, 

She trembled for his life; lest the fierce bulls, 

Or lest iEetes should, himself, destroy 

The man she loved : and she bewailed him now 

As if already dead ; and down her cheeks, 

In deep commiseration, the soft tear 

Flow'd anxiously. With piercing tone of grief 

Her voice found utterance : ' "Why, unhappy one ! 

Am I thus wretched? what concerns it me, 

Whether this paragon of heroes die 

The death, or flee discomfited ? And yet 

He should unharm'd depart. Dread Hecate! 

Be it thy pleasure ! let him homeward pass, 

And 'scape his threaten'd fate : or, if his fate 

Beneath the bulls have destined him to fall, 

First let him know, that in his wretched end 

Medea does not glory !' So, disturb'd, 

Mused the sad virgin in her anguish'd thoughts. 



DELIBERATION OF MEDEA 

ON HEE. PROMISE TO JASON. 

Night then brought darkness o'er the earth: at sea 

The mariners their eyes from shipboard raised. 

Fix'd on the star Orion, and the Bear. 

The traveller and the keeper of the gate 

Rock'd with desire of sleep ; and slumber now 

Fell heavy on some mother, who had wept 

Her children in the grave. No bay of dogs, 

No noise of tumult, stirr'd the city streets ; 

All hush'd in stillest darkness. But sweet sleep 

Sooth'd not Medea. Many a busy thought, 

For love of Jason, strain'd her wakeful eyes. 

She fear'd the bulls, by whose o'er -mastering strength 

He, on the battle-field, must haply meet 

Dishonorable death. With feverous throbs 

The heart within her bosom restless heaved. 

As when the glitter of the sun, that springs 

From watei*, in some cauldron freshly pour'd, 

Or milk-pail, brandish'd quivers on the walls, 

Darts in quick rings, and vibrates round and round ; 

So was the Virgin'3 heart, within her breast, 

Turn'd to and fro. The tear, compassionate, 

Stole trickling from her eyes, and inward grief 

Prey'd with slow wasting on her pining frame : 

Such weight of suffering did her sleepless love 

Lay on her bosom. Now her will resolves 

To gift the chief with drugs of charming power : 

Now she abjures the thought; and she will die 



285A.C] APOLLONIUS. 199 

Together with the man she loves. Anon 

Her resolutions change; nor will she die 

"With him she loves, nor yield the charming drugs ; 

But calm, with unresisting apathy, 

Bear with his fate. Then sitting, while her thoughts, 

Waver'd in musing doubts, aloud she spake: 

' Still am I wretched with the choice of ills ! 

My mind is impotent of thought: no cure 

For this, the torment irresistible 

That evermore consumes me. Would to Heaven 

That I had fallen by Dian's nimble darts, 

Ere I had seen him! Ere my sister's sons 

Had gone for Greece, whence some unfriendly god, 

Or Fury brings these lamentable woes. 

Then let him fight, and perish, if his fate 

Decree that he shall die upon the field. 

How should I shun my parents' eyes, and mix 

The needful drugs ? What speech can serve my turn ? 

What fraud shall aid me, or what secret wile? 

Shall I apart from his companions, see 

The chief alone, and interchange kind words ? 

Wretch that I am! for if, indeed, he die, 

How could I hope a respite from my woes? 

Then were my sum of misery full, if he 

Were reft of life. Away with modesty ! 

Away with decent forms ! and let him go, 

Saved by my counsels, whereso'er he list. 

And then, on that same day when he achieves 

The combat, let me die: to yon high beam, 

Let me, suspended by the throat, expire ; 

Or drain the juices, that destroy the souL 

Yet men will cast reproaches, after life, 

Upon my breathless body ; and, from far, 

Shall the whole city cry aloud, and rail, 

Upon my death ; and here and there will throng 

The Colchian women, and pursue with taunts 

My memory.' This maiden's heart was wrapt 

So deeply in a stranger, that for him 

She died; and stain'd her parents, and her house, 

To lovesick frenzy yielding up herself, 

What shame will not be mine ? oh, misery ! 

Were it not better now, this very night, 

Here in my chamber, to forsake my life? 

So, by a sudden death, to 'scape at once 

All this reproach; before my deeds have wrought 

This full disgrace, unworthy of a name V 

She said, and to her casket went, full-stored 
With drugs : some healthful, some of deadly bane. 
She placed it on her knees, and wept; the tears 
Unceasing bathed her bosom; flowing forth, 
Spite of herself, abundantly, for grief 
Of her hard fate. And now the impulse rose, 



000 APOLLO NIUS. [Lect. VIII. 

To cull and taste the drugs that poison life. 

She loosed the casket's fastenings ; with ill hap 

Gathering the mortal herbs, when, suddenly, 

Came o'er her mind a horror of the grave. 

Long time she mused in doubt: life's pleasing cares, 

In smiling vision, flitted on her sight : 

She thought upon the pleasures that are found 

Among the living; she remember'd her 

Of the gay playmates of her virgin hours : 

The sun more pleasant in her fancy shone 

Than ere his light had been; and, more and more, 

Her fondness grew for each remember'd thing. 

She then replaced the casket from her knees, 

For Juno turn'd her heart ; and, straight, she long'd 

For morning to appear, that she might give 

The promised drugs of saving power, and greet 

The face of Jason. (5ft she drew the bolts 

That closed her chamber door, and with long look 

Watch'd for the light. Then morning on her gaze 

Darted its lovely splendor, and the throng 

Appear'd in motion through the city streets. 

But, when the virgin saw the morning light 
Gay — glittering round, she with her hands bound up 
The tresses of her yellow hair, that flow'd 
Loose in disorder down : she ting'd her cheeks, 
"Which tears had sullied, with cosmetic red ; 
O'er her smooth body shed a shining oil, 
That breathed nectarian odor, and enrobed 
Her form in elegant cymar, whose folds 
"Were gather'd at the waist with pliant clasps; 
And a tiara, silver-tissued, placed 
Upon her fragrant head: so walking forth 
She passed the palace, with elastic step 
Treading the floor : of present ills alike 
Forgetful, and of greater yet behind. 



MEDEA AND JASON 

I 

IN THE TEMPLE OF HECATE. 



No other theme employ'd Medea's mind, 

Though singing; nor could all her sportive maids, 

Whatever carol they alternate sang, 

Long please her : she, still absent, in the song 

Broke off abrupt. Nor on the damsels round 

Look'd she with stedfast eyes ; but turn'd them still 

To the far paths, and ever lean'd her cheek, 

Inclining forward; and a shock was felt 

Quick at her heart, if e'er she list'ning caught 

A footfall's echo, or the passing wind. 

But soon he came; and, to the longing maid 
Appear'd, high bounding; as the Syrian star, 



285A.C.] APOLLO NI US. 201 

Emerged from ocean, rises, beautiful 

And glorious to behold; yet to the flocks 

Sends forth wide-wasting plagues. Thus Jason came: 

Thus beautiful in aspect; but his sight 

Raised agonized emotion, and her heart 

Sank ; her eyes darken'd ; and the reddening blood 

Rush'd to her cheek; nor could her faltering knees 

Advance, nor yet recede ; and, under her, 

Her feet seem'd rooted to the earth. Anon 

The damsels left them, and retired apart. 

Thus, opposite -each other, mute they stood: 
As oaks, or fir-trees tall, nigh-growing, lift, 
Upon the mountains, their firm-rooted stems 
In quietness, when not a breath of air 
Is stirring in the leaves; anon, with gusts 
Of rushing wind are shaken to and fro 
With deep tumultuous murmur; so the breath 
Of love would stir within them, and their tongues 
Flow with no stinted utterance. Jason felt 
The virgin tremble with her heaven-sent grief, 
And, soft in blandishment, address'd her thus : 

'Why dost thou fear me, maiden, thus alone? 
For I am not like men, who boast themselves 
Vain-gloriously, nor was 1 1 ever such, 
When dwelling in the land that gave me birth. 
Then fear me not too greatly, gentle maid ! 
But now interrogate, or speak thyself 
Whate'er thou list; and, since we meet with minds 
Of friendly greeting, in this hallow'd place, 
Where guile were sacrilege, now openly 
Speak thou, or question me. Not with smooth words 
Beguile me; since thy promise, from the first, 
Is through thy sister pledged, that thou wilt give 
The welcome drugs. By Hecate herself! 
By thy own parents ! by all-seeing Jove ! 
Who o'er the stranger and the suppliant still 
Spreads his protecting hand, I thee conjure! 
For I a stranger and a suppliant come 
Into thy presence : in severest strait 
I bend and clasp thy knees ; for, without thee, 
I cannot hope to quell with mastering strength 
This bitter conflict. For thy aid my thanks 
Hereafter shall be thine : such thanks as men, 
Who dwell remote can give. I will exalt 
Thy name and graceful honor ; and the rest 
Of heroes with me shall extol thy praise, 
When they to Greece return : the mothers too, 
And wives of heroes, who now musing sit 
Upon the ocean sho^e, and wail our loss. 
Disperse their heavy sorrows, for thou canst. 
Thus the Minoian virgin, she who call'd 
Pasiphae mother, daughter of the sun ; 



202 APOLLONIUS. [Lect. VIIL 

Wise Ariadne, from his mortal toil 

Deliver'd Theseus. She indeed, the wrath 

Of Minos sooth'd, in Theseus' galley sate, 

And left her country; and the gods themselves 

Loved her; and still her sign is seen in Heaven; 

And, 'midst the glittering symbols of the sky, 

The starry crown of Ariadne glides. 

Such gracious power from the deities 

"Will sure be thine, if thou wilt save the lives 

Of this, our band of heroes ; and in sooth 

Thy form bespeaks thee graced with manners mild.' 

So said the youth, with admiration high 
Gilding bis speech; but she, her eyes cast down, 
Smiled with enchanting sweetness : all her soul 
Melted within her, of his words of praise 
Enamor'd. Then she fix'd full opposite 
Her eyes upon him, at a loss what word 
She first should speak, yet wishing in a breath • 

To utter all her fond impetuous thoughts. 
And with spontaneous act, she took the drug 
From forth her fragrant girdle's folds, and he 
Received it at her hands, elate -with joy: 
And she had drawn the spirit from her breast, 
Had he but asked it; sighing out her soul 
Into his bosom. So from Jason's head, 
Waving with yellow locks, Jove lighten'd forth 
A lambent flame, and snatch'd the darted rays 
That trembled from his eyes. Her inmost soul 
Floating in bliss, she all dissolved away; 
As dew on roses in the morning's beams 
Evaporating melts. So stood they both; 
And bent, in bashfulness, their eyes on earth, 
Then glanced them on each other ; while their brows 
Smiled joyous, in serenity of love. 

At length the virgin, half-inaudible, 
Addressed him thus : ' Learn now my purpos'd means 
To aid thee. When thou comest, and my sire 
Gives thee to sow the serpent's mortal teeth, 
Watch when the midnight parts the sky; and bathe 
In the perennial river's flowing stream. 
Then wrapt in sable garments, dig a trench 
In hollow circle: slay a lamb therein, 
And fresh and undivided, lay the lamb 
Upon the altar, when thy hand has heap'd 
Within the circling trench the fuell'd fire, 
Then soothe with prayers the one dread Hecate; 
And from a goblet in libation shed 
The honey of the hive. The Goddess thus 
Duly appeas'd, recede, and quit the pile ; 
Nor let the tramp of footsteps make thee turn, 
Nor yell of dogs, lest all should be undone; 
Nor thou from this comprize as meet it is, 



285A.C] LEON ID AS. 203 

Greet thy companions. Liquefy this drug, 

By glimmer of the dawn, and, naked, spread 

The slippery ointment o'er thy shining limbs. 

A mighty force shall instantly pervade 

Thy body, and immensity of strength ; 

And thou wouldst say, thou wert a match in fight, 

Not for men only, but immortal Gods : 

And let thy spear, thy buckler, and thy sword 

Be thus anointed. Not the lances, then, 

Of earth-born hosts can wound thee ; nor the flame, 

Resistless darted, of the deadly bulls. 

Not thus invulnerable in thy strength 

"Wilt thou remain, but only on that day. 

Go boldly to the combat : draw not back, 

For I have other aid. When thou has yoked 

The sturdy bulls, and plough'd with hands of strength 

The furrow'd fallow, and the giants rise, 

Sprung from the serpent's teeth, which thou hast thrown 

Midst the dark glebe ; when thou shalt mark them rise 

Thick o'er the field, then cast, with wily throw, 

A heavy stone. They for the prize, like dogs 

That ravening fight for food, shall turn and slay 

Each other. Thou thyself impetuous rush, 

And charge amidst the battle. So shalt thou 

Bear from iEeta's isle the fleece away 

To distant Greece ; and thou shalt hence depart 

"When'er it please thee; should it please thee hence 

So to depart. She said ; and silently 

Low tow'rds her feet bent sad her sorrowing eyes, 

And bathed her cheek with scalding tears, and mourn'd, 

That she should wander on the seas, far off, 

Away from him. Then, careless of reserve, 

Again, with plaintive speech, addressing him, 

She caught him with her hand: for now her eyes 

Had lost their bashful shame : ' Remember yet, 

If to thy home thou ever shouldst return, 

Medea's name. "When thou art far away, 

I shall remember thee.' • • • ■ 

Leonidas, of Tarentum, Cleanthes, of Vassus, and Rhianus, of Bena, 
contemporaries of Apollonius Rhodius, were all as remarkable for pecu- 
liar circumstances in their lives, as they were for their genius. 

Leonidas was a native of Tarentum, a Greek settlement in the south- 
ern part of Italy, and was an epigrammatic writer of very considerable 
celebrity. We know little of the history of his life, however, farther 
than that he lived during the reign of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who was 
killed in battle 272 A.C. From one of the epigrams of Leonidas, written 
for his own epitaph, we learn the name of his birth-place, and also that 
after many wanderings, during which the Muses were his chief solace, 
he died, and was buried at a distance from his native land. 



204 LEONID AS. [Lect. VIII. 

The epigrams of Leonidas were very numerous, and were chiefly 
inscriptions for dedicatory offerings and works of art ;- and though not 
of a very high order of poetry, they are usually pleasing, ingenious, ele- 
vated in moral tone, and in good taste. Bernhardy not unhappily char- 
acterizes them as being ' in a sharp, lapidary style.' Of these epigrams 
the following are the most pleasing ; 



HOME. 

Cling to thy home ! if there the meanest shed 
Yield thee & hearth, and shelter for thy head, 
And some poor plot, with vegetables stor'd, 
Be all that heaven allots thee for thy board — 
Unsavory bread, and herbs that scattered grow 
"Wild on the river -brink or mountain-brow, 
Yet e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide 
More heart's repose than all the world beside. 



THE RETURN OF SPRING TO SAILORS. 

Haste to the port ! the twittering swallow calls, 
Again returned ; the wintry breezes sleep ; 

The meadows laugh; and warm the zephyr falls 
On ocean's breast and calms the fearful deep. 

Now spring your cables, loiterers; spread your sails; 

O'er the smooth surface of the waters roam! 
So shall your vessel glide with friendly gales, 

And fraught with foreign treasure, waft you home. 



A MOTHER ON HER SON. 

Unhappy child ! unhappy I, who shed 
A mother's sorrows o'er thy funeral bed ! 
Thou 'rt gone in youth, Amyntas ; I, in age, 
Must wander through a lonely pilgrimage, 
And sigh for regions of unchanging night, 
And sicken at the day's repeated light. 
Oh, guide me hence, sweet spirit, to that bourne, 
Where, in thy presence, I shall cease to mourn. 



INSCRIPTION ON A BOAT. 

They say that I am small and frail-, 
And cannot live in stormy seas : — 

It may be so ; yet every sail 

Makes shipwreck in the swelling breeze : 



285 AC.] LEONID AS. 

Nor strength nor size can then hold fast, 
But fortune's favor, heaven's decree : — 

Let others trust in oar and mast, 
But may the gods take care of me ! 



205 



ON A STATUE OF ANACREON. 

Come see your old Anacreon, 

How, seated on his couch of stone 

"With silvery temples garlanded, 

He quaffs the rich wine, rosy-red; 

How, with flush'd cheek and swimming eye, 

In drunken fashion, from his thigh 

He lets his robe unheeded steal, 

And drop and dangle o'er his heel. 

One sandal's off; one searce can hide 

The lean and shrivell'd foot inside. 

Old Anacreon — hark I he sings 

Still of love to th' old harp-strings ! 

Still, Bathylla— still, Megiste,— 

How he coax'd ye, how he kiss'd ye I 

Gentle Bacchus, watch and wait, 

You must watch and hold him straight j 

Hold him up ; for, if he fall, 

Tou lose your boldest bacchanal. 



ON HOMER. 

Dim grows the planets, when the god of Day 
Rolls his swift chariot through the heavenly way, 
The moon's immortal round, no longer bright, 
Shrinks in pale terror from the glorious light: — 
Thus, all eclipsed by Homer's wondrous blaze, 
The crowd of poets hide their lessened rays. 



ON HIMSELF. 



Far from Tarentum's native soil I lie, / 

Far from the dear land of my infancy. 

'Tis dreadful to resign this mortal breath, 

But in a stranger clime 'tis worse than death. 

Call it not life to pass a fevered age 

In ceaseless wanderings o'er the world's wide stage. 

But me the Muse has ever loved, and given 

Sweet joys to counterpoise the curse of heaven ; 

Nor lets my memory decay, but long 

To distant time preserves my deathless soDg. 



20G CLEANTHES. [Lect. VIIL 

Cleanthes was the son of Phanias, and was born at Assos in Troas, 
about 290 A.C, though the exact date is unknown. He was of low and 
comparatively obscure origin, and commenced life by being a wrestler 
and boxer in a public circus ; but conceiving an ardent desire for philo- 
sophical knowledge, he resolved to leave his native place and repair to 
Athens, where the information he sought after might be more readily 
obtained than at Assos. His circumstances when he arrived in Athens, 
were so low that he was obliged to resort to manual labor to obtain his 
daily subsistence, and meet the expenses of his instruction. The employ- 
ment to which he resorted was that of drawing water during the night from 
the public wells of the city ; but as this gave him no visible means of sup- 
port, he was summoned before the Areopagus to account for his way of 
living. The secret of his employment was thus divulged; and the 
judges of the court were so delighted by the evidence of industry which 
he produced, that they voted him ten minse. 

Cleanthes at first placed himself under the instruction of Crates, but 
soon after removed to the school of Zeno, whose faithful disciple he con- 
tinued for many years. Being naturally dull of apprehension, he was 
considered by his fellow-pupils stupid, and received from them the title 
of tlie Ass, in which appellation he is said to have rejoiced, as it implied 
that his back was strong enough to bear whatever Zeno put upon it. 
Several other anecdotes preserved of him show that he was one of those 
enthusiastic votaries of philosophy who naturally appeared from time to 
time in an age when there was no deep and earnest religion to satisfy the 
thinking part of mankind. He declared that for the sake of philosophy 
he would dig and undergo all possible labor ; he took notes of Zeno's 
lectures on bones and pieces of earthen-ware when he was too poor to 
buy parchment ; and with quaint penitence he reviled himself for his 
small progress in philosophy, by calling himself an old man c possessed of 
gray hairs, but not of a mind.' 

For his vigor and zeal in the pursuit of philosophy, Cleanthes was 
styled a second Hercules; and when Zeno died. 263 A.C, he succeeded 
him in his school, and continued to fill that important position till his 
death, which occurred in the eightieth year of his age, and the particulars 
attending which are characteristic. His physician recommended to him 
a two days' abstinence from food to cure an ulcer in his mouth ; and at 
the end of the second day, he said that, as he had now advanced so far 
in the road to death, it would be a pity to have the trouble over again ; 
and he therefore still refused all nourishment, and died of starvation. 

The philosophical doctrines of Cleanthes were those of the stoical 
sect; and the names of his numerous treatises, as preserved byLaertius, 
present the usual catalogue of moral and philosophical subjects. Of his 
poems, the only one that has escaped the ravages of time is his Hymn 
to Jupiter. Of this poem, which contains some striking sentiments, 



290A.C.] CLEANTHES. 207 

West, the distinguished English critic, remarks : l It is extraordinary to 
find sentiments so correct in a heathen, and poetry so pure and elevated 
in a philosopher.' Of this poem the following version is as faithful to 
the original as it can, perhaps, be rendered in our language : 

HYMN TO JUPITER. 

Most glorious of th' immortal powers above ! 
Oh thou of many names 1 mysterious Jove ! 
For evermore Almighty ! Nature's source ! 
That govern'st all things in their order'd course! 
All hail to thee ! since, innocent of blame, 
E'en mortal creatures may address thy name; 
For all that breathe, and creep the lowly earth, 
Echo thy being with reflected birth; 
Thee will I sing, thy strength for aye resound: 
The universe, that rolls this globe around, 
Moves wheresoe'er thy plastic influence guides, 
And, ductile, owns the god whose arm presides. 
The lightnings are thy ministers of ire, 
The double-forked, and ever-living fire; 
In thy unconquerable hand they glow, * 

And at the flash all nature quakes below. 
Thus, thunder -arm'd, thou dost creation draw 
To one immense, inevitable law: 
And with the various mass of breathing souls 
Thy power is mingled, and thy spirit rolls. 
Dread genius of creation ! all things bow 
To thee ; the universal monarch thou ! 
Nor aught is done without thy wise control, 
On earth, or sea, or round th' ethereal pole, 
Save when the wicked, in their frenzy blind, 
Act o'er the follies of a senseless mind. 
Thou curb'st th' excess ; confusion to thy sight 
Moves regular ; th' unlovely scene is bright. 
Thy hand, educing good from evil, brings 
To one apt harmony, the strife of things. 
One ever-during law still binds the whole, 
Though shunn'd, resisted, by the sinner's soul. 
"Wretches ! while still they course the glittering prize, 
The law of god eludes their ears and eyes. 
Life then were virtue, did they this obey; 
But wide from life's chief good they headlong stray. 
Now glory's arduous toils, the breast inflame; 
• Now avarice thirsts, insensible of shame ; 

Now sloth unnerves them in voluptuous ease: 
And the sweet pleasures of the body please. 
"With eager haste they rush the gulf within, 
And their whole souls are center'd in their sin. 
But oh, great Jove ! by whom all good is given, 
Dweller with lightnings, and the clouds of heaven 1 
Save from their dreadful error lost mankind ! 
Father! disperse these shadows of the mind! 



o 08 RHIANUS. [Lect. VIIL 

Give them thy pure and righteous law to know, 
Wherewith thy justice governs all below. 
Thus honor'd by the knowledge of tby way, 
Shall men that honor to thyself repay; 
And bid thy mighty works in praises ring, 
As well befits a mortal's lips to sing : 
More blest, nor men, nor heavenly powers can be, 
Than when their Bongs are of thy law and thee. 

Rhianus, a distinguished Alexandrian poet and grammarian, was born 
at Bene, an obscure city in the island of Crete, about 250 A.C. Like 
Cleanthes, he was of low origin, and commenced bis career as the master 
of a gymnastic circus ; but conceiving an earnest and ardent desire for 
literary attainments, be left his athletic pursuits, and devoted all the 
energies of his mind to the acquisition of knowledge — the result of which 
was, scholarship of a commanding order, and poetic power of lasting ad- 
miration. Of his history, time has unfortunately preserved comparatively 
little information, farther than that during a long life, most of which was 
passed at Alexandria, he devoted his chief attention to the composition 
of historical poems, such as the history of Messena, and other cities of 
antiquity. He wrote, also, according to Suidas, an epic poem, of which, 
however, only a single line has been preserved, and a number of epigrams, 
eleven of which are still extant. 

Rhianus was so great a favorite of the Romans, as to occupy, in their 
judgment, the first rank among the Grecian poets ; and Tiberius, the ac- 
complished, but cruel and unprincipled emperor, placed his bust in the 
public libraries of Rome, along with those of the most distinguished poets 
of antiquity. The moral fragments of the poetry of Rhianus contain 
much dignity and elevation of sentiment ; and his epigrams, all of which 
treat of amatory subjects with much freedom, excel in elegance of lan- 
guage, cleverness of invention, and simplicity of expression. The two fol- 
lowing poems will illustrate these remarks : 



ON HUMAN FOLLY. 

Still err our mortal souls, nor wisely bear 
The heaven-dealt lots, that still depress the scale 
From side to side. The man of indigence 
Loads with his bitter blame the gods; and, stung 
With discontent, neglects his mental powers, 
And energies ; nor dares, courageous, aught 
Of speech or action; trembling when the rich 
Appear before him — sadness and despair 
Eating his very heart. While he, who swells 
With proud prosperity, whom heaven endows 
With riches, and with power above the crowd; 
Forgets his being's nature; that his feet 



285A.C] ANTAGORAS. 209 

Tread the low earth, and that himself was bora 

Of mortal parents ; but, with puffd-up mind, 

Sinful in haughtiness, like Jove, he wields 

The thunder; and, though small in stature, lifts 

The neck, with high-rein'd head, as though he wooed 

Fair-arm'd Minerva; and had cleft a way 

To high Olympus' top; that with the gods 

There number'd, he might feast in blessedness. 

But lo! Destruction, running with soft feet, 

Unlook'd for, and unseen, bows suddenly 

The loftiest heads. Deceitfully she steals 

In unexpected forms upon their sins; 

To youthful follies wears the face of age ; 

To aged crimes the features of a maid ; 

And her dread deed is pleasant in the sight 

Of Justice, and of him who rules the gods. 



AMATORY EPIGRAM 

Dexionica, with a limed thread, 
Her snare, beneath a verdant plane-tree, spread; 
And caught a blackbird by the quivering wing; 
The struggling bird's shrill outcries piping ring. 
Oh, god of love 1 Oh, Graces, blooming fair ! 
I would that I a thrush, or blackbird, were: 
So, in her grasp, to breathe my murmur'd cries, 
And shed a sweet tear from my silent eyes ! 

A brief notice of Antagoras, Nicsenetus, Dioscorides, Euphorion, and 
Damagetes, all of whom were poets of this age, will close our present 
remarks. 

Antagoras was a native of the island of Rhodes, and was ranked 
among the epic poets of the period in which he lived. He is said to 
have been very fond of good living, respecting which, Plutarch and 
Athenaeus relate some very facetious anecdotes. He wrote an epic 
poem under the title of Thebais, which he read to the Boeotians, to 
whom it appeared so tedious, that they could not refrain from yawning. 
He also composed many epigrams, of which the following are specimens : 



CUPID'S GENEALOGY. • 

Whither shall we go to prove 
The genealogy of Love ? 
Shall we call him first-created 
Of the gods from chaos dated, 
When Erebus and Mght were mated 
And their glorious progeny 
Sprung from out the secret sea? 
14 



210 NIC^ENETUS.— DIOSCORIDES. [Lect. VIII 

Or will Venus claim Love's birth? 
Or the roving Winds, or Earth? 
For his temper varieth so, 
And the gifts he doth bestow 
(Like his form which changeth still, 
Taking either sex at will,) 
Are now so good, and now so bad, 
"We know not whence his heart he had. 



ON TWO CYNIC PHILOSOPHERS. 

Here Palemo and pious Crates lie — 

(So speaks this column to the passers by,) 

In life unanimous and joined in death, 

Who taught pure wisdom with inspired breath : 

Whose acts, accordant with the truths severe 

Their lips pronounced, bespoke the soul sincere. 

Nicaenetus, an epigrammatic writer, was a native of Abdera, in Thrace, 
but early in life settled in Samos. Athasneus speaks of him in connection 
with his celebrating a Samian usage, as being a poet of strong native 
tendencies. He wrote, among other things, a list of illustrious women ; 
and of his numerous epigrams, six are still preserved. Of these we give 

the following : 

t 

THE PRECEPT OF CRATLNUS. 

If with water you fill up your glasses, 

You'll never write anything wise; 
For wine is the horse of Parnassus, 

Which hurries a bard to the skies. 



THE FETE CHAMPETRE. 

Not in the city be my banquet spread, 

But in sweet meadows, where around my head, 

The zephyr may float freely : be my seat 

The mossy platform of some green retreat, 

Where shrubs and creepers, starting at my side, 

May furnish cushion smooth and carpet wide. 

Let wine be served us, and the warbling lyre 

Trill forth soft' numbers of the Muses' choir ; 

That we, still drinking, and our hearts contenting, 

And still to dulcet tones new hymns inventing, 

May sing Jove's bride, from whence these pleasures come, 

The guardian goddess of our island home. 

Dioscorides seems, from the internal evidence of his epigrams, of which 
there are thirty-nine in the Greek Anthology, to have lived in Egypt, 



274A.C] EUPHORION. 211 

and to have flourished during the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, His 
epigrams are chiefly upon the great men of antiquity, especially the poets, 
and were highly esteemed by his contemporaries. The two following are 
exceptions to their general character : 

THE PERSIAN SLAVE TO HIS MASTER. 

master ! shroud my body, when I die, 
In decent cerements from the vulgar eye. 
But burn me not upon yon funeral pyre, 
Nor dare the gods and desecrate their fire; 

1 am a Persian; 'twere a Persian's shame 
To dip his body in the sacred flame. 

Nor o'er my worthless limbs your waters pour ; 
For streams and fountains Persia's sons adore: 
But leave me to the clods that gave us birth, — • 
For dust should turn to dust, and earth to earth, 

SPARTAN VIRTUE. 

When Thrasybulus from the embattled field 
"Was breathless borne to Sparta on his shield, 
His honored corse, disfigured still with gore, 
From seven wide wounds, (but all received before,) 
Upon the pyre his hoary lather laid, 
And to the admiring crowd triumphant said: 
Let slaves lament, — while I, without a tear, 
Lay mine and Sparta's son upon his bier. 

• Euphorion, a native of Chalcis, in Euboea, was eminent both as a gram- 
marian and poet. He was the son of Polymnetus, and was born, accord- 
ing to Suidas, 274 A.C., the same year in which Pyrrhus was defeated by 
the Romans. He became, but at what period of his life is not known, a 
citizen of Athens, and was there instructed in philosophy by Lacydes 
and Prytanis, and in poetry by Archebulus of Thera, Having amassed 
great wealth, he went into Syria, to Antiochus the Great, who made him 
his librarian. After residing for many years in Syria he there died, and 
was buried at Antioch, the capitol of the Syrian empire. 

Euphorion was a writer of much more than ordinary genius, and his 
works were very numerous, both in poetry and prose. His poems were 
chiefly of the epic class, and related principally to mythological history. 
He was, however, an epigrammatist as well as an epic poet, and had a 
place in the Garland of Meleager. He was also a great favorite of the 
emperor Tiberius, who wrote Greek poems in imitation of him. The 
following epigrams are very sweet : 

ON A CORPSE WASHED ASHORE. 

Not rugged Trachis hides these whitening bones, 
Nor that black isle, whose name its colors shows, 



o 12 DAMAGETES. [Lect. VIII. 

But the wild beach, o'er which with ceaseless moans 

The vexed Icarian wave eternal flows, 
Of Drepanus — ill-fated promontory — 

And there, instead of hospitable rites, 
The long grass sweeping tells his fate's sad story 

To rude tribes gathered from the neighboring heights. 



ON TEARS. 

Be temperate in grief! I would not hide 
The starting tear-drop with a Stoic's pride, — 
I would not bid the o'erburthen'd heart be still, 
And outrage Nature with contempt of ill. 
"Weep ; but not loudly ! He, whose stony eyes 
Ne'er melt in tears, is hated by the skies. 

Damagetes, the poet with whom we close our present remarks, was the 
author of thirteen epigrams in the Greek Anthology, from the contents 
of some of which we ascertain that he flourished about 225 A.C., and 
probably in Egypt. His name is given by the Scoliast to Apollonius 
Rhodius, from which we infer that his position among the wits of the age 
was prominent. The following epigrams are well worth preserving : 

ON A WIFE 

DYING IN HER HUSBAND'S ABSENCE. 

These the last words, Theano, swift descending 
To the deep shades of night, was heard to say, — 

1 Alas ! and is it thus my life is ending, 
And thou, my husband, far o'er seas away? 

Ah 1 could I but that dear hand press with mine, 

Once — once again ! — all else I'd pleas'd resign.' 



ON TWO THEBAN BROTHERS 

SLAIN IN THRACE. 

By Jove, the god of strangers, we implore 

Thee, gentle pilgrim, to the JEolian shore, 

(Our Theban home,) the tidings to convey 

That here we lie, to Thracian wolves a prey. 

This to our father, old Charinus, tell; 

And, with it, this, — ' We mourn not that we fell 

In early youth, of all our hopes bereft ; 

But that his darkening age is lonely left.' > 



Kuhxt ijr* Hftttfr. 



BION.— MOSCHUS.— NIC ANDER. — TYMNES.— POLYSTRATUS. — ANTIPA- 
TER OF SIDON— ARCHIAS.— MELEAGER.--PHILODEMUS.--CRINA- 
GORAS.— ZONAS.— ANTIPHALUS.— LEONIDAS.— PHILIP.— ANTIPATER 
OF THESSALONICA,— AND THE GREEK POETS AFTER THE CHRIS- 
TIAN ERA. 

THE poets who occupied our time and attention during the last lee 
ture, lived at a time when the literature of the Alexandrian school 
had become thoroughly established — when originality of thought and 
vigor of expression were all but extinct ; and though the ancient writers 
were most highly valued, their spirit was lost, and the chief use made of 
them was to heap together their materials in elaborate compilations, and 
expound them by trivial and fanciful additions, while the noble forms of 
verse, in which they had embodied their thoughts, were made the vehicles 
of a mass of cumbrous learning. Hence the complaints which the best 
of succeeding writers made of the obscurity, verbosity, and tediousness 
of Lycophron, Callimachus, Euphorion, and the other chief writers of the 
long period, during which the Alexandrian grammarians ruled the liter- 
ary world. 

Bion and Moschus, whom we are next to notice, though belonging to 
the same school, differed from their associates and immediate predeces- 
sors in many essential particulars. They were, perhaps, more purely 
imaginative than any other poets of antiquity. The spirit of poetry 
seems not only to have seized upon .their feelings, but to have absorbed 
all the powers of their intellect ; and hence in the breathing forth of 
their numbers there is so little < of the earth earthy.' 

Bion was born at Phlossa, a small town on the river Meles, in the 
vicinity of Smyrna, about 200 A.C. Having acquired a poetic reputa- 
tion in Smyrna, he was soon drawn from that city by the attractions of 
the court of Alexandria, and under the reign of Ptolemy Philometer he 
basked, for a few years, in the sunshine of uninterrupted prosperity ; but 
having, in some way not known, given offence to his munificent patron, 
he left Egypt, and for many years after resided in the island of Sicily, 



214 BION. [Lect. IX. 

cultivating bucolic poetry, the natural growth of that island. He after- 
wards, according to Moschus, visited Macedonia and Thrace, and was 
finally put to death by poison, administered, as is supposed, by royal 
order. The lines of Moschus, found in his { Elegy on Bion,' which 
induce this opinion, are the following : 

What man so hard could mix the draught for thee, 
Or bid be mixed, nor feel thy melody? 

Bion's poems are usually called idyls, and he is commonly reckoned 
among the bucolic poets ; but it must be remembered that this name is 
not confined to the subjects that it really indicates ; for, in the time of 
Bion, bucolic poetry embraced that class of poems, also, in which the 
legends about gods and heroes were treated from an erotic point of 
view. He wrote in hexameter verse exclusively; and his language is 
usually the Doric dialect, mixed with Attic and Ionic forms. His style 
is highly refined, his sentiments soft and sentimental, and his versification 
very fluent and elegant. 

The elegy of Bion on Adonis is in the strain of that pure and elevated 
poetry which is so rarely seen ; and it is worthy of notice that ' Yenus 
and Adonis ' formed the subject of the first important effort of the immor- 
tal Shakspeare. In both these poems the poets create not only the 
feelings which they express, but the objects upon which those feelings 
are expanded. Thus, as has been exquisitely said by the latter of these 
two great poets — 

The poet's eye in a fine phrenzy rolling, 

Glances from Heaven to earth, from earth to Heaven; 

And as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing, 

A local habitation and a name. 

It is this peculiar property which gives character to that remarkable 
elegy. Indeed, every thing in Bion partakes essentially of the poet. 
His apologues are beautiful models of allegory, and delight us by their 
unaffected archness, and the sweetness of their simplicity. These re- 
marks will be fully illustrated by the elegy itself, which follows : 

ELEGY ON ADONIS. 

I mourn Adonis, fair Adonis dead : 

The Loves their tears for fair Adonis shed : 

No more, oh Venus ! sleep in purple vest ; 

Rise robed in blue : ah, sad one ! smite thy breast, 

And cry, 'the fair Adonis is no more.' 

I mourn Adonis ; him the Loves deplore : 

See fair Adonis on the mountaius lie ; 

The boar's white tusk has rent his whiter thigh: 



200A.CJ BION. 215 

While in faint gasps his life-breath ebbs away, 

Griefs harrowing agonies on Venus prey: 

Black through the snowy flesh the blood-drops creep; 

The eyes beneath his brows in torpor sleep : 

The rose has fled his lips, and with him dies 

The kiss, that Venus, though in death, shall prize: 

Dear is the kiss, though life the lips have fled ; 

But not Adonis feels it warm the dead. 

I mourn Adonis : mourn the Loves around : 
Ah ! cruel, cruel is that bleeding wound : 
Yet Venus feels more agonizing smart ; 
A deeper wound has pierced within her heart. 
Around the youth his hounds in howlings yell; 
And shriek the nymphs from every mountain dell: 
Venus, herself, among the forest dales, 
Unsandel'd, strews her tresses to the gales: 
The wounding brambles, bent beneath her tread, 
With sacred blood-drops of her feet are red : 
She through the lengthening vallies shrieks and cries, 
1 Say where my young Assyrian bridegroom lies V 
But round his navel black the life-blood flowed, 
His snowy breast and side with purple glow'd. 

Ah, Venus ! ah, the Loves for thee bewail ; 
With that lost youth thy fading graces fail; 
Her beauty bloom'd, while life was in his eyes ; 
Ah, woe ! with him it bloom'd, with him it dies. 
The oaks and mountains ' ah, Adonis !' sigh : 
The rivers moan to Venus' agony : 
The mountain springs all trickle into tears: 
The blush of grief on every flower appears: 
And Venus o'er each solitary hill, 
And through wide cities chaunts her dirges shrill. 

Woe, Venus ! woe ! Adonis is no more : 
Echoes repeat the lonely mountains o'er, 
• Adonis is no more :' woe, woe is me ! 
Who at her grievous love dry-eyed can be? 
Mute at th' intolerable wound she stood : 
And saw, and knew the thigh dash'd red with blood: 
Groaning she stretch'd her arms : and ' stay !' she said, 
' Stay, poor Adonis ! — lift thy languid head : 
Ah I let me find thy last expiring breath, 
Mix lips with lips, and suck thy soul to death. 
Wake but a little, for a last, last kiss : 
Be it the last, but warm with life, as this. 
That through my lips I may thy spirit drain, 
Suck thy sweet breath, drink love through every vein : 
This Mss shall serve me ever in thy stead; 
Since thou thyself, unhappy one ! art fled : 
Thou art fled far to Acheron's drear scene, 
A king abhorr'd, and an inhuman queen: 
I feel the woe, yet live : and fain would be 
No goddess, thus in death to follow thee. 



216 B-ION. [Lect.IX 

Take Proserpine,- my spouse : all loveliest things 

Time to thy realm, oh mightier goddess ! brings : 

Disconsolate I mourn Adonis dead, 

With tears unsated, and thy name I dread. 

Oh thrice-belov'd ! thou now art dead and gone ! 

And all my sweet love, like a dream, is flown. 

Venus sinks lonely on a widow'd bed : 

The Loves with listless feet my chamber tread : 

My cestus perish'd with thyself: ah why, 

Fair as thou wert, the coverts venturous try, 

And tempt thy woodland monster's cruelty?' 

So Venus mourns: her loss the Loves deplore: 
Woe, Venus, woe ! Adonis is no more. 
As many drops as from Adonis bled, 
So many tears the sorrowing Venus shed : 
For every drop on earth a flower there grows: 
Anemones for tears ; for blood the rose. 

I mourn Adonis : fair Adonis dead : 
Not o'er the youth in words thy sorrows shed : 
For thy Adonis' limbs a couch is strewn, 
That couch he presses, Venus ! 'tis thy own. 
There dead he lies, yet fair in blooming grace : 
Still fair, as if with slumber on his face. 
Haste, lay him on the golden stand, and spread 
The garments that inrobed him in thy bed, 
When on thy heavenly breast the livelong night 
He slept, and court him, though he scare thy sight: 
Lay hint with garlands and with flowers ; but all 
With him are dead, and wither'd at his fall. 
With balms anoint him from the myrtle tree : 
Or perish ointments ; for thy balm was he. 

Now on his purple vest Adonis lies : 
The groans of weeping Loves around him rise : 
Shorn of their locks beneath their feet they throw 
The quiver plumed, the darts, and broken bow : 
One slips the sandal, one the water brings 
In golden ewer, one fans him with his wings. 

The Loves o'er Venus' self bewail with tears, 
And Hymen in the vestibule appears 
Shrouding his torch; and spreads in silent grief 
The vacant wreath that twined its nuptial leaf. 
1 Hymen I' no more : but ' woe, alas !' they sing : 
1 Ah, for Adonis !' ' Ah ! for Hymen 1' ring : 
The Graces for the son of Myrrha pine ; 
And, Venus ! shriek with shriller voice than thine; 
Muses, Adonis, fair Adonis, call, 
And sing him back ; but he is deaf to all. 
Bootless the sorrow, that would touch his sprite, 
Nor Proserpine shall loose him to the light : 
Cease Venus ! now thy wail : reserve thy tear : 
Again to fall with each Adonian year. 



200A.C.] BION\ 217 



HYMN" TO THE EVENING STAR. 

Mild star of eve, whose tranquil beams 
Are grateful to the queen of love, 

Fair planet, whose effulgence gleams 
More bright than all the host above, 

And only to the moon's clear light 

Yields the first honors of the night ! 

All hail, thou soft, thou holy star, 
Thou glory of the midnight sky! 

And when my steps are wandering far, 
Leading the shepherd-minstrelsy, 

Then, if the moon deny her ray 

Oh guide me, Hesper, on my way ! 

No savage robber of the dark, 
No foul assassin claims thy aid 

To guide his dagger to its mark, 
Or light him on his plund'ring trade; 

My gentle errand is to prove 

The transports of requited love. 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 

As late I slumbering lay, before my sight 
Bright Yenus rose in visions of the night: 
She led young Cupid; as in thought profound 
His modest eyes were fix'd upon the ground; 
And thus she spoke: 'To thee, dear swain, I bring 
My little son ; instruct the boy to sing.' 

No more she said; but vanish'd into air, 
And left the wily pupil to my care: 
L — sure I was an idiot for my pains, — 
Began to teach him old bucolic strains ; 
How Pan the pipe, how Pallas form'd the flute, 
'Phoebus the lyre, and Mercury the lute: 
Love, to my lessons quite regardless grown, 
Sang lighter lays, and sonnets of his own ; 
Th' amours of men below, and gods above, 
And all the triumphs of the Queen of Love. 
I, — sure the simplest of all shepherd-swains — 
Pull soon forgot my old bucolic strains ; 
The lighter lays of love my fancy caught, 
And I remember'd all that Cupid taught. 



THE SEASON'S. 

CLEODAMAS. 

Say, in their courses circling as they tend, 
What season is most grateful to my friend? 



218 BION. [Lect.IX. 

Summer, whose suns mature the teeming ground, 
Or golden Autumn, with full harvests crown'd ? 
Or Winter hoar, when soft reclin'd at ease, 
The fire bright blazing, and sweet leisure please? 
Or genial Spring in blooming beauty gay? 
Speak Myrson, while around the lambkins play. 

MYRSON. 

It ill becomes frail mortals to define 
What's best and fittest of the works divine; 
The works of nature all are grateful found, 
And all the Seasons, in their various round; 
But, since my friend demands my private voice, 
Then learn the season that is Myrson's choice. 
Me the hot Summer's sultry heats displease; 
Fell Autumn teems with pestilent disease; 
Tempestuous Winter's chilling frosts I fear, 
But wish for purple Spring throughout the year. 
Then neither cold nor heat molests the morn, 
But rosy Plenty fills her copious horn ; 
Then bursting buds their odorous blooms display, 
And Spring makes equal night, and equal day. 



SHORTNESS OF LIFE. 

If any virtue my rude songs can claim, 
Enough the Muse has given to build my fame; 
But if condemned ingloriously to die, 
Why longer raise my mortal minstrelsy ? 
Had Jove a Fate to life two seasons lent, 
In toil and ease alternate to be spent, 
Then well one portion labor might employ 
In expectation of the following joy ; 
But if one only age of life is due 
To man, and that so short and transient too, 
How long (ah, miserable race !) in care 
And fruitless labor waste the vital air ? 
How long with idle toil to wealth aspire, 
And feed a never-satisfied desire ? 
How long forget that, mortal from our birth, 
Short is our troubled sojourn on the earth. 



FRIENDSHIP. 

Thrice happy they 1 whose friendly hearts can burn 
With purest flame, and meet a kind return. 
With dear Perithous, as poets tell, 
Theseus was happy in the shades of hell : 
Orestes' soul no peace, no woes, deprest; 
Midst Scythians he with Py lades was blest. 



184A.C] MOSCHUS. 219 

Blest was Achilles, while his friend surviv'd, 
Blest was Patroclus every hour he lived ; 
Blest, when in battle he resign'd his breath, 
For his unconquer'd friend aveng'd his death. 



Moschus, the friend and pupil of Bion, was born at Syracuse, in the 
island of Sicily, about 184 A.C. He early repaired to the court of Alex- 
andria, and soon after his arrival at that common resort of the learned 
of that period, an intimacy commenced between him and Bion not unlike 
that which had previously existed between Theocritus and Aratus. Of 
his personal history nothing is farther known, than that he passed many- 
years at the court of Egypt, and professedly made Bion's poems the 
models for his own compositions. 

Of the works of Moschus still extant, the Elegy on Bion, and Europa, 
are the most important. Besides these larger pieces, there are a few 
fragments of other poems remaining, and one epigram. He was, like 
Theocritus, a bucolic poet ; and so great is the similarity between the 
style and manner of many of their compositions, that their pieces have 
frequently been mistaken for each others. Indeed, some critics have re- 
garded him as one of the contemporaries of Theocritus, whilst others 
have even conceived the two names to belong to the same person ; but as 
Moschus alludes expressly to Theocritus, as one of his great predeces- 
sors, there can, of course, be no foundation for this opinion. His apo- 
logues are so similar to those of Bion, as to be with difficulty distin- 
guished from them. 

Moschus' elegy on Bion, like the Lycidas of Milton, breathes forth, in 
the tenderest strains, his melancholy recollections of his friend, and his 
ardent attachment to him. The poem may, at first view, appear forced 
and affected, from its exuberance of conceit ; and thus Dr. Johnson re- 
garded both it and Lycidas ; for, says the learned critic, ( Where there is 
real sorrow, there is nothing of mere poetry.' This criticism is, however, 
hypercritical, and contrary to popular feeling ; and hence we find that 
Shakspeare, who had from nature the deepest intuition into the compli- 
cated science of mental philosophy, saw that the human mind perpetually 
foils the calculations of previous reasoning. We are often struck with 
the language and deportment of his characters, as contrary to what might 
have been expected under such circumstances ; and yet we shall invari- 
ably find that the great dramatist, in disappointing the vulgar notions of 
probability or consistency, has uniformly followed the impulses of practi- 
cal human life. 

We are, therefore, constrained to regard both the elegy of Moschus 
and the Lycidas of Milton as no impeachment of the poet's accurate 
taste or genuine simplicity of feeling. It is, in either instance, the 



220 MOSCHUS. [Lect. IX. 

luxury of sorrow which pleases itself with grotesque and romantic crea- 
tions of an excited fancy. It is the revery of the poet, accompanied 
with that natural irregularity of the mind, that unseating of the judg- 
ment by an over-balance of the imagination, which marks the delirious 
axcess of melancholy in the man — the melancholy of the natural man, 
conscious of a decaying principle within him, which breaks out patheti- 
cally in that beautiful complaint of the utter extinction of human life, as 
compared with the reviviscence of plants and flowers. In that magnifi- 
cent poem of the Old Testament, the Book of Job, there is a passage 
very similar to this elegy of Moschus, though far exceeding it in sub- 
limity. It is found in the fourteenth chapter, and is thus forcibly ren- 
dered in our standard version : — 

7. For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and 
that the tender branch thereof will not cease : 

8. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof lie in 
the ground : 

9. Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a 
plant: 

10. But man dieth, and wasteth away ; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where 
is he ? 

11. As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: 

12. So man lieth down, and riseth not, till the heavens be no more, they shall 
not awake ; nor be raised out of their sleep. 

LAMENT FOR BION. 

Oh forest dells and streams i oh Dorian tide ! 
Groan with my grief, since lovely Bion died: 
Ye plants and copses now his loss bewail: 
Flowers from your tufts, a sad perfume exhale : 
Anemones and roses, mournful show 
Tour crimson leaves, and wear a blush of woe : 
And hyacinth, now more than ever spread 
The woeful ah 1 that marks thy petal'd head 
"With letter'd grief: the beauteous minstrel's dead. 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe : 
Ye nightingales, whose plaintive warblings flow 
From the thick leaves of some embowering wood, 
Tell the sad loss to Arethusa's flood : 
The shepherd Bion dies: with him is dead 
The life of song: the Doric Muse is fled. 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe : 
Where Strymon's gliding waters smoothly flow, 
Ye swans, chant soft with saddest murmuring 
Such notes as Bion's self was wont to sing: 
Let Thracia's maids, the nymphs of Hsemus, learn, 
The Doric Orpheus slumbers in his urn. 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe : 
The herds no more that chant melodious know: 



184A.C.] MOSCHUS. 221 

No more beneath the lonely oaks he sings, 
But breathes his strains to Lethe's sullen springs: 
The mountains now are mute; the heifers pass 
Slow-wandering by, nor browse the tender grass. 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe : 
For thee, oh Bion 1 in the grave laid low, 
Apollo weeps : dark palls the Sylvan's shroud ; 
Fauns ask thy wonted song, and wail aloud : 
Each fountain-nymph disconsolate appears, 
And all her waters turn to trickling tears; 
Mute Echo pines the silent rocks around, 
And mourns those lips, that waked tbeir sweetest sound : 
Trees dropp'd their fruitage at thy fainting breath, 
And flowers were wither'd at the blast of death : 
The flocks no more their luscious milk bestow'd, 
Nor from the hive the golden honey flow'd : 
Grief in its cells the flowery nectar dried, 
And honey lost its sweets when Bion died. 

The dirge of woe, Sicilian Muses ! pour : 
Ne'er mourn'd the dolphin on the ocean shore, 
Ne'er on the rocks so sang the nightingale, 
Nor the sad swallow in the mountain dale ; 
Ne'er did the halcyon's notes so plaintive flow; 
Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe : 

Nor ere the sea-mew shrill'd its mournful strain 
Midst the blue waters of the glassy main , 
Nor the Memnonian bird was wont to sing 
In Eastern vales, light-hovering on the wing, 
"Where slept Aurora's sun within the tomb, 
As when they wail'd the lifeless Bion's doom. 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe: 
The swallows, -nightingales, that wont to know 
His pipe with joy; whose throats he taught to sing, 
Perch'd on the branches made their dirges ring: 
All other birds replied from all the grove ; 
And ye too mourn, oh every woodland dove ! 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe ; 
Who, dear -beloved ! thy silent flute shall blow? 
"What hardy lip shall thus adventurous be ? 
Thy lip has toueh'd the pipe ; it breathes of thee. 
Mute Echo, too, has caught the warbled sound 
In whispering reeds, that vocal tremble round: 
I bear the pipe to Pan: yet, haply he 
May fear the trial lest eclips'd by thee, 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe : 
The tears of pensive Galatsea flow 
Missing thy songs, which on our ear would glide, 
"When on the sea-shore sitting by thy side: 
Unlike the Cyclop's music was thy lay, 
For she, from him, disdainful fled away: 
She from the ocean look'd on thee serene. 
And now, forgetful of the watery scene, 



222 MOSCHUS. [Lect. IX. 

Still on the desert sands, beside the brine, 

She feeds the wandering herds, that late were thine. 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe: 
"Whatever gift the Muses could bestow 
Are dead with thee; whate'er the damsels gave 
Of sweet-lipp'd kisses, buried in thy grave. 
Around thj sepulchre the Loves deplore 
Their loss ; and Venus, shepherd ! loves thee more 
Than the soft kiss, which late she bent to sip 
From dying fragrance of Adonis' lip. 
Oh, Meles ! most melodious stream ; behold 
Another grief, like Homer's loss of old : 
Calliope's sweet mouth : thy streams did run 
In wailing tides to mourn that mighty son : 
Thou with thy voice didst fill the greater sea: 
Behold another son is lost to thee: 
Shrunk are thy streams; both bathed in holiest dews; 
Both dear alike to fountains of the Muse: 
This drank where Pegasus had delved the hill; 
That dipp'd the cup in Arethusa's rill: 
This Sang Tyndarian Helen's matchless charms, 
Thetis' great son, and Menelaus' arms : 
But that no wars, no tears, in numbers roll'd; 
Pan, swains, he sang, and singing fed his fold ; 
The sweet-breath'd heifer milk'd; the pipes combined, 
And taught how damsels kiss most melting kind: 
The infant Love he fondled ou his breast, 
And Venus' self her soothest swaim caress'd. 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe: 
Tears for thy loss through famous cities flow: 
Ascra less pensive bends o'er Hesiod's urn, 
And less Boeotia's woods, for Pindar mourn: 
Not so tower'd Lesbos weeps, Alcseus' strains, 
Or Cos for lost Simonides complains : 
Paros regrets Archilochus no more, 
And Mitylene scorns for thine her Sappho's lore. 
What though the Syracusan vales among 
Theocritus may tune a defter song ; 
I sing Italian ditties sad; nor they 
Too far are strange from that Bucolic lay 
Which from thy lips thy list'ning scholars caught; 
Heirs of the Doric Muse, which Bion taught. 
Thy wealth to others left unmoved I see, 
For thou hast left thy minstrelsy to me. 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe : 
Ah, me ! ah, me ! the fading mallows strow 
The garden beds: the parsley's verdant wreath, 
And crisped anise shed their bloomy breath: 
Yet the new year shall fresh existence give, 
Warm their green veins, and bid them blow and live. 
But we, the great, the valiant, and the wise, 
When once in death we close our pallid eyes: 



184A.C] MOSCHUS. 223 

In earth's dark caverns, senseless, slumber o'er 

The long and endless sleep, the sleep that wakes no more. 

Thou, too, in silence of the ground art laid: 

The nymphs are pleased that croaking frogs invade 

Their list'ning ears; and let them sing for me: 

The song that's discord cannot envied be. 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe : 
Poison has touch'd thy lips ; its venom slow 
Has curdled in thy veins ; and could'st thou sip, 
Nor poison turn to honey on thy lip? 
What man so hard could mix the draught for thee, 
Or bid be mix'd, nor feel thy melody ? 

Sicilian Muses, pour the dirge of woe ; 
But retribution sure will deal the blow : 
I, in this trance of grief, still drop the tear, 
And mourn forever o'er thy livid bier ; 
Oh that as Orpheus, in the days of yore, 
Ulysses, or Alcides, pass'd before, 
I could descend to Pluto's house of night, 
And mark if thou would'st Pluto's ear delight, 
And listen to the song: oh then rehearse 
Some sweet Sicilian strain, Bucolic verse; 
To soothe the maid of Enna's vale, who sang 
These Doric songs, while ^Etna's upland rang. 
Not unrewarded shall thy ditties prove : 
As the sweet harper Orpheus, erst could move 
Her breast to yield his dear departed wife, 
Treading the backward road from death to life ; 
So shall he melt to Bion's Dorian strain, 
And send him joyous to his hills again. 
Oh could my touch command the stops like thee, 
I too would seek the dead, and sing thee free. 

To this exquisite elegy on Bion, we add the following brief pieces : 

ALPHEUS AND ARETHUSA. 

From where his silver waters glide 
Majestic, to the ocean-tide 

Through fair Olympia's plain, 
Still his dark course Alpheus keeps 
Beneath the mantle of the deeps, 

Nor mixes with the main. 

To grace his distant bride, he pours 
The sand of Pisa's sacred shores, 

And flowers that deck'd her grove : 
And, rising from the unconscious brine, 
On Arethusa's breast divine 

Receives the meed of love. 

'Tis thus with soft bewitching skill 
The childish god deludes our will, 
And triumphs o'er our pride; 



224 NICANDER/ [Lect. IX. 

The mighty river owns his force, 
Bends to the sway his winding course, 
And dives beneath the tide. 

THE CONTRAST. 

O'er the smooth main, when scarce a zephyr blows 

To break the dark-blue ocean's deep repose, 

I seek the calmness of the breathing shore, 

Delighted with the fields and woods no more. 

But when, white-foaming, heave the deeps on high, 

Swells the black storm, and mingles sea with sky. 

Trembling, I fly the wild tempestuous strand, 

And seek the close recesses of the land. 

Sweet are the sounds that murmur through the wood, 

While roaring storms upheave the. dang'rous flood; 

Then, if the winds more fiercely howl, they rouse 

But sweeter music in the pine's tall boughs. 

Hard is the life the weary fisher finds 

"Who trusts his floating mansion to the winds, 

"Whose daily food the fickle sea maintains, 

Unchanging labor, and uncertain gains. 

Be mine soft sleep, beneath the spreading shade, 

Of some broad leafy plane, inglorious laid, 

Lull'd by a fountain's fall, that, murmuring near, 

Soothes, not alarms, the toil-worn laborer's ear. 

A MOTHER LAMENTING- HER CHILDREN. 

But as a bird bewails her callous brood, 
"While in the brake a serpent drains their blood, 
And, all too weak the wished relief to bring, 
Twittering her shrill complaints on feeble wing 
At distance hovers, nor will venture near 
The fell destroyer, chill'd with conscious fear; 
So I, all frantic, the wide mansion o'er, 
Unhappy mother, my lost sons deplore. 

Nicander, a contemporary of the two poets last noticed, but whose ge- 
nius strikingly contrasted with theirs, was born at the small town of 
Claros, near Colophon, in Ionia, about 195 A.C. He was the son of 
Damnaeus, one of the hereditary priests of Apollo Clarius, to which dig- 
nity Nicander himself succeeded. He was a physician and grammarian, 
as well as poet, and flourished under Attalus, king of Pergamus, by whom 
he was highly esteemed, and particularly patronized ; but of the history 
of his life nothing is farther known. 

Nicander was a very voluminous writer, but confined the efforts of his 
muse chiefly to medical subjects. He, however, composed historical poems 
on Colophon, iEtna, Sicily, and various other places. But of his numerous 
literary performances nothing now remains excepting two medical poems. 



195A.C.] NICANDER. 225 

The longest of these poems is entitled Theriaca, and contains nearly a 
thousand hexameter lines. It treats of venomous animals, and the wounds 
inflicted by them, and contains some curious and interesting zoological 
passages, together with numerous absurd fables. His other remaining 
poem, on poisons and their cures, is also written in hexameter verse, and 
contains more than six hundred lines. These works are now read only 
by the curious ; but both they and their author must have been very pop- 
ular with the ancients, as there is a Greek epigram still extant, compli- 
menting Colophon on being the birth-place of Homer and Nicander. 

Didactic poetry, the strain in which Nicander uniformly wrote, what- 
ever may be its subject, naturally pleases, inasmuch as it forms so many 
poetical species or varieties, and amuses by the novel lights in which 
it exhibits the plastic genius of poetry. . Thus, poems on hunting and 
fishing were always favorite exercises of fancy with the ancients ; and even 
herbs and simples appear early to have attracted the attention of poets. 
A work of this kind is numbered among the lost poems of Hesiod ; but 
it must be remembered that in his day, there was no other vehicle than 
verse for every subject of memory and instruction. But the poems of 
Nicander are too limited in their scope, and of too physically unpleasant 
a nature, to afford a 

'"Wreath to bind the Muses' brow.' 

There is, however, in his descriptions of the various reptiles, a vivacity 
that attracted Yirgil's notice, and probably suggested to Lucan his ser- 
pents of the desert, that infested the way of Cato ; but his account of vul- 
nerary herbs resembles a botanical nomenclature; and his catalogue. of 
symptoms and of remedies a { Domestic Medicine' in verse. As curiosi- 
ties we subjoin the following passages : 

OF THE SERPENT CERASTES. 

FROM THE ANTIDOTES. 

Wow may'st thou learn the subtle horned snake, 
That steals upon thee, viperous in his make. 
But while the viper's forehead maim'd appears, 
Horns, two or four, the bold Cerastes rears. 
Lean, dun of hue, the snake in sands is laid, 
Or haunts within the trench that wheels have made. 
Against thee strait on onward spires he rides, 
And with long path, on trailing belly glides: 
But sidelong, tottering, rolls his middle track. 
And winds his crooked way, and twines his scaly back: 
As with long stern, some galley cleaves the tide, 
"Wavering with gusts, and dips its diving side; 
"While, as the vessel cuts its channel'd way, 
Dash'd on the wind recoils the scatter'd spray. 
15 



coo TYMNES. [Lect. IX. 

When bites the sei'pent, strait the puncture round 

A callous tumor, like a nail, is found: 

And livid pustules, large as drops of rain, 

Spread round the bite; of dull, and faintish stain, 

Feeble the smart; but, when nine suns have shone, 

The agonizing symptoms hasten on. 

In whom the horny snake, with deed malign, 

Has flesh'd his tooth, that foams with rage canine, 

The loins and knees a restless pain invades, 

And the whole skin is 6treaked with purplish, shades. 

Scarce lingers in his frame the laboring breath, 

And scarce he struggles from the toils of death. 



FROM THE COUNTER-POISONS. 

Be quick with aid, when yew-tree juice with pains 

Of anguish-thrilling potion whelms the veins ; 

The tongue is under -swoll'n ; the lips protrude 

In heavy tumors, with dry froth bedew'd : 

The gums are cleft ; the heart quick tremor shakes : 

Smit with the bane, the laboring reason quakes. 

He utters bleating sounds ; and furies vain 

With thousand turns, delirious, cross his brain. 

He shrieks like one who sees, with anguish'd dread, 

Life-threatening swords near-brandish'd at his head. 

As Rhea's chalice-bearing priestess flies 

Beneath the new moon, and with long, loud cries, 

Whirls o'er the smoking plain, on Ida's hill 

The shepherds tremble at her howlings-shrill : 

So yells his frenzied rage ; his eyeballs roam, 

Bull-like, askance; his teeth are gnash'd in foam. 

Him fast with many-twisted bonds confine ; 

And drench him deep with draughts of luscious wine, 

And gently stimulate his throat, to throw 

The poison off, with forced, ejected flow. 

An unfledged gosling may the symptoms tame, 

In water sodden o'er the brightening flame. 

The rinds of apples will relief bestow ; 

Clean pears, that wild upon the mountains grow; 

Or those that, planted in an orchard's shades, 

Bloom in spring hours, and charm the roving maids. 

During the half century that elapsed between the period of Nicander 
and that of Mcleager, a number of epigrammatic poets flourished, the 
principal of whom were Tymnes, Polystratus, Antipater of Sidon, and 
Archias of Antioch ; but for these we have only a passing remark. 

Tymnes, or. as his name is sometimes erroneously written, Tymnseus, is 
supposed, by Reiske, to have been a native of Crete ; but the exact 
period of his birth is uncertain. There are seven of his epigrams in the 



150A.C.] POLYSTRATUS.— ANTIPATER. 221 

Greek Anthology, all of which are remarkable for their beautiful sim- 
plicity. We give the following as samples : 

ON ONE WHO DIED IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY. 

Grieve not, Philaenis, though condemned to die 

Far from thy parent soil, and native sky ; 

Though strangers' hands must raise thy funeral pile, 

And lay thine ashes in a foreign isle : 

To all on death's last dreary journey bound, 

The road is equal, and alike the ground. 



SPARTAN VIRTUE. 

Demetrius, when he basely fled the field, 
A Spartan born, his Spartan mother kill'd; 
Then, stretching forth his bloody sword, she cried, 
(Her teeth fierce gnashing with disdainful pride,) 
' Fly, cursed offspring, to the shades below, 
Where proud Eurotas shall no longer flow 
For timid hinds like thee! — Fly, trembling slave, 
Abandoned wretch, to Pluto's darkest cave ! 
Myself so vile a monster never bore, 
Disown'd by Sparta, thou'rt my son no more.' 

Polystratus, according to Stephanus Byzantinus, was a native of Leto- 
polis, in Egypt ; but of his history nothing farther is known. The 
Greek Anthology contains two of his epigrams, one of which, the follow- 
ing, is on the destruction of Corinth, which took place 146 A.C. He 
therefore probably lived about 150 A. C. 



ON THE DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH. 

Achaean Acroeorinth, the bright star 

Of Hellas, with its narrow Isthmian bound, 
Lucius o'ercame ; in one enormous mound 
- Piling the dead, conspicuous from afar. 

Thus to the Greeks denying funeral fires, 
Have great ^Eneas' latest progeny 
Perform'd high Jove's retributive decree, 

And well avenged the city of their sires. 

Antipater was descended from a noble and wealthy family of Sidon, and, 
according to a passage in Cicero's de Oratoribus, third book, he was con- 
temporary with Quintus Catullus, who flourished 1 08 A. C. Cicero notices 
the extraordinary facility with which Antipater would pour forth extem- 
pore verses; and from the many minute references made to him by 
Meleager, who also wrote his epitaph, we infer that he must have been a 



oo 8 ANTI PATER. [Lect. IX. 

very considerable personage. He lived to a very great age, and was the 
author of numerous epigrams, contained in the Greek Anthology, of 
which we give the following : 



ON ORPHEUS. 

No more, sweet Orpheus ! shalt thou lead along 
Oaks, rocks, and savage monsters with thy song, 
Fetter the "winds, the struggling hail-storm chain, 
The snowy desert soothe, and sounding main ; 
For thou art dead ; — the Muses o'er thy bier, 
Sad as thy parent, pour the tuneful tear. 
"Weep we a child ? — Not e'en the gods can save 
Their glorious offspring from the hated grave. 



ON HOMER'S BIRTH-PLACE. 

From Colophon some deem thee sprung, 
From Smyrna some, and some from Chios ; 

These, noble Salamis have sung, 
"While those proclaim thee born in Ios ; 

And others cry up Thessaly 

The mother of the Lapithee, 

Thus each to Homer has assign'd 

The birth-place just which suits his mind. 

But, if I read the volume right, 
By Phoebus to his followers given, 

I'd say they're all mistaken quite, 
And that his real country's heaven ; 

"While for his mother, she can be 

No other than Calliope. 



ON SAPPHO. 

Does Sappho then beneath thy bosom rest, 
JEolian earth! — that mortal Muse confest 
Inferior only to the choir above, 
That foster-child of Venus and of Love, 
"Warm from whose lips divine Persuasion came 
To ravish Greece and raise the Lesbian name? 
ye ! who ever twine the three-fold thread, 
Ye Fates, why number with the silent dead 
That mighty songstress, whose unrivall'd powers 
"Weave for the Muse a crown of deathless flowers. 



140A.C] ANTIPATER. 229 



ON ERINNA. 

Few were thy notes, Erinna, — short thy lay, — 

But thy short lay the Muse herself hath given; 
Thus never shall thy memory decay, 

Nor night obscure the fame, which lives in heaven; 
"While we, the unnumbered bards of after-times, 

.Sink in the melancholy grave unseen, 
Unhonored reach Avernus' fabled climes, 

And leave no record that we once have been. 



ON ANACREON. 

Grow, clustering ivy, where Anacreon lies ; 
There may soft buds from purple meadows rise; 
Gush, milky springs, the poet's turf to lave, 
And fragrant wine flow joyous from his grave ! 
Thus charm'd, his bones shall press the narrow bed 
If aught of pleasure ever reach the dead. 
In these delights he soothed his age above, 
His life devoting to the lyre and love. 



ON PINDAR. 

As the loud trumpet to the goatherd's pipe, 

So sounds thy lyre, all other sounds surpassing; 
Since round thy lips, in infant fullness ripe, 

Swarm honied bees, their golden stores amassing. 
Thine Pindar ! be the palm, — by him decreed 

Who holds on Maenalus his royal sitting; 
"Who, for thy love, forsook his simple reed, 

And hymns thy lays in strains a god befitting. 



THE WIDOW'S OFFERING. 

To Pallas, Lysistrata offered her thimble 

And distaff, of matronly prudence the symbol : 

Take this, too,' she said; 'then farewell, mighty queen! 

I 'm a widow, and just forty winters have seen ; 

So thy yoke I renounce, and henceforward decree 

To live with Love's goddess, and prove that I'm free. 



THE HONEST SHEPHERD. 

When hungry wolves had trespass'd on the fold, 
And the robb'd shepherd his sad story told, 
Call in Alcides,' said a crafty priest, 
Give him one half, and he'll secure the rest.' 



230 ARCHIAS. [Leot. IX. 

' No,' said the shepherd, ' if the Fates decree, 
By ravaging my flock, to ruin me, 
To their commands I willingly resign ; 
Power is their character, and patience mine: 
Though, 'troth, to me there seems but little odds 
Who prove the greatest robbers, — wolves or gods.' 

Archias was born at Antioch in Syria, about 120 A.C., but early re- 
moved to Rome, and became a citizen of that republic. *At Rome lie 
lived for many years on intimate terms with some of the first families of 
the city, particularly with the Lucinii, whose name he adopted. His 
reception during a journey through Asia Minor and Greece, and after- 
wards in Grecian Italy, where Tarentum, Rhegium, Naples and Locri 
enrolled him upon their registers, shows that his reputation was, at least 
at that time, very considerable. 

Archias' principal poems appear to have been heroic odes in honor of 
Marius, Sylla, Metellus, Lucullus, and other distinguished Roman gene- 
rals of that period ; in which he especially celebrated their many great 
and important victories. Of these poems the ode on the Cimbric war, in 
celebration of the important victory which Marius gained over the vast 
hords of the rude Cimbri, is said to have been the best. He also wrote 
many such epigrams as those which follow. Both Cicero and Quintilian 
inform us that Archias had the gift of making good extempore verses in 
great numbers, and was remarkable for the richness of his language and 
his varied range of thought : 

LIFE AND DEATH. 

Thracians ! who howl around an infant's birth, 
And give the funeral hour to songs of mirth. 
"Well in your grief and gladness are exprest, 
That Life is labor, and that Death is rest. 



ON A SHIPWRECKED MARINER. 

I, Theris, wreck'd and cast a corse on shore, 

Still shudder at old Ocean's ceaseless roar. 

For here, beneath the cliff's o'ershadowing gloom, 

Close by its waves have strangers dug my tomb. 

Hence still its roaring, reft of life, I hear ; 

Its hateful surge still thunders in my ear, 

For me alone, by Fate unrespited, 

Remains no rest to soothe me — even though dead. 



ON AN OLD RACE HORSE. 

Me, at Alphaeus wreath'd, and twice the theme 
Of heralds, by Castalia's sacred stream, — 



96A.C.] MELEAGER. 231 

Me, Isthmus' and Nemsea's trumpet-tongue 
Hailed fleet as winged storms! — I then was young. 
Alas! wreaths loathe me now; and Eld hath found 
An outcast trundling mill-stones round and round. 

Meleager, the son of Eucrates, was a native of Gadara, in Palestine, 
and was born about 96 A.C. He flourished under Seleucus, the last 
king of Syria, and his general place of residence was the city of Tyre, 
where he passed, almost exclusively, the early part of his life. But he 
was at length driven from that city by the wars which the Romans were 
then carrying on in the East, and retired to the island of Cos, where he 
passed, in comparative seclusion and devotion to study, the remainder of 
his life. 

Meleager was an extensive and celebrated writer, and the Greek An- 
thology contains one hundred and thirty-one of his epigrams written in a 
good Greek style, though somewhat affected. He professed to have 
formed his style upon that of the satirical prosaic poet Menalippus ; but 
in the soft and tender effusions of his muse which have been handed down 
to us, there is no resemblance to the severe satirist : on the contrary, all 
is singularly delicate and fanciful. 

Meleager, though a writer of much elegance, is still more remarkable 
for being the father of the Greek Anthologies, than for his original po- 
etry. These Anthologies are collections of small poems, chiefly epi- 
grams, of various authors. Many of the pieces are remarkable for their 
beauty and simplicity in thought, and their peculiar turns of expression. 
The earliest of these collections was made just at the time when Greek 
literature began sensibly to decline. Several of them were made before 
the fall of Carthage, but seem to have been formed with more reference 
to the historical value of the inscriptions, than to their poetical merit. 
Of this class was the collection of Polemo Periegetes, which is now 
entirely lost. 

The earliest collection of such poems, brought together and preserved, 
for their intrinsic merit, was that of Meleager to which we have just 
alluded. It was made about 60 A.C, was entitled the Crown, or Gar- 
land, and contained the better pieces of forty-six poets, arranged in 
alphabetical order. The second of these collections, with the same 
arrangement, was made by Philippus of Thessalonica, in the time of 
Trajan. Soon after, under Adrian, about 120 A.D., a collection of 
choice pieces was formed by Diogenianus of Heraclea ; and about one 
hundred years afterwards, Diogenes Laertius gathered, in various metres, 
a body of epigrams composed in honor of illustrious men. ■■• 

A third Anthology was published in the sixth century by Agathias of 
Myrina, and consisted of seven books, into which the pieces were distrib- 
uted according to their subjects. In the tenth century a fourth collec- 
tion was made by Constantine Cephalas, of whom nothing more is 



232 MELEAGER. [Lkct.IX. 

known ; and in the fourteenth century Maximus Planudes, a monk of 
Constantinople, the same who collected the fables of iEsop, formed a 
fifth Anthology. Planudes arranged the pieces included in his collection 
in seven distinct books. 

The two last-mentioned collections are the only Anthologies now ex- 
tant ; but they, doubtless, embrace the principal contents of all the rest. 
To Meleager, however, as the originator of this method of preserving 
the fugitive poetry of Greece from oblivion, we are chiefly indebted for 
most of it that remains ; and the following pieces show that he was him- 
self a very sweet poet : 



THE RETURN OF SPRING. 

liush'd is the howl of wintry breezes wild ; 
The purple hour of youthful spring has smiled : 
A livelier verdure clothes the teeming earth ; 
Buds press to life, rejoicing in their birth ; 
The laughing meadows drink the dews of night, 
And, fresh with opening roses, glad the sight : 
In song the joyous swains responsive vie ; 
Wild music floats, and mountain melody. 

Adventurous seamen spread the embosomed sail 
O'er waves light heaving to the western gale ; 
While village youths their brows with ivy twine, 
And hail with song the promise of the vine. 

In curious cells the bees digest their spoil, 
When vernal sunshine animates their toil, 
And little birds, in warbhngs sweet and clear, 
Salute thee, Maia, loveliest of the year : 
Thee, on their deeps the tuneful halcyons hail, 
In streams the swan, in woods the nightingale. 

If earth rejoices, with new verdure gay, 
And shepherds pipe, and flocks exulting play, 
And sailors roam, and Bacchus leads his throng, 
And bees to toil, and birds awake to song, 
Shall the glad bard be mute in tuneful spring, 
And, warm with love and joy, forget to sing. 



SONG. 

Still, like dew in silence falling, 
Drops for thee the nightly tear ; 

Still that voice, the past recalling, 
Dwells, like echo, on mine ear, 
Still, still! 

Day and night the spell hangs o'er me; 
Here, forever fixed thou art; 



96A.C.] MELEAGER. 233 

As thy form first shone before me, 
So 'tis graven on this heart, 
Deep, deep! 

Love, oh love, whose bitter sweetness 

Dooms me to this lasting pain ; 
Thou, who cam'st with so much fleetness, 

"Why so slow to go again? 
Why ? why ? 



THE DIN OF LOVE. 

'Tis love, that murmurs in my breast, 
And makes me shed the secret tear; 

Nor day nor night my heart has rest, 
For night and day his voice I hear. 

A wound within my heart I find, 

And oh ! 'tis plain where Love has been, 

For still he leaves a wound behind, 
Such as within my heart is seen. 

bird of love ! with song so drear, 
Make not my soul the nest of pain ! 

Oh, let the wing that brought thee here,. 
In pity waft thee hence again. 



TO HIS MISTRESS SLEEPING. 

Thou sleep'st, soft silken flower ! Would I were sleep, 
Forever on those lids my watch to keep ! 
So would I have thee all mine own, — or he, 
Who seals Jove's wakeful eyes, my rival be. 



THE VOW. 

In holy night we made the vow ; 

And the same lamp, which long before 
Had seen our early passion grow; 

Was witness to the faith we swore. 

Did I not swear to love her ever; 

And have I ever dared to rove? 
Did she not own a rival never 

Should shake her faith, or steal her love ? 

Yet now she says those words were air, 
Those vows were written all in water; 

And by the lamp that heard her swear, 
Had yielded to the first that sought her. 



034 MELEAGER. [Lect. IX. 



THE COMPARISON. 

The snowdrop peeps from every glade, 
The gay narcissus proudly glows, 

The lily decks the mountain shade, 
Where blooms my fair — a blushing rose. 

Ye meads ! why vainly thus display 
The buds that grace your vernal hour ? 

For see ye not my Zoe stray, 
Amidst your sweets, a sweeter flower. 



THE GIFTS OF THE GRACES. 

The Graces, smiling, saw her opening charms, 
And clasped Arista in their lovely arms. 
Hence her resistless beauty ; matchless sense ; 
The music of her voice ; the eloquence, 
That, e'en in silence, flashes from her face ; 
All strikes the ravished heart — for all is grace: 
List to my vows, sweet maid ! or from my view 
Far, far away, remove ! In vain I sue ; 
For, as no space can check the bolts of Jove, 
No distance shields me from the shafts of Love. 



MUSIC AND BEAUTY. 

By the God of Arcadia, so sweet are the notes 
Which tremulous fall from my Rhodope's lyre ; 

Such melody swells in her voice, as it floats 

On the soft midnight air, that my soul is on fire. 

Oh where can I fly? The young Cupids around me 

Gaily spread their light wings, all my footsteps pursuing; 

Her eyes dart a thousand fierce lustres to wound me, 
And music and beauty conspire my undoing. 



THE SAILOR'S RETURN. 

Help, help, my friends '.—Just landed from the main- 
New to its toils, and glad to feel again 
The firm rebounding soil beneath my feet 
Love marks his prey, and with enforcement sweet 
Waving bis torch before my dazzled eyes, 
Drags me to where my queen of beauty lies. 
Now on her steps I tread — and if in air 
My fancy roves, I view her picture there, 



96 A.O.] MELEAGER. 235 

Stretch my fond arms to fold her, and delight 
With unsubstantial joys my ravish'd sprite. 
Ah ! vainly 'scaped the fearful ocean's roar, 
To prove a fiercer hurricane on shore. 



NIOBE. 

Daughters of Tantalus, lorn Niobe, 

Sad are the tidings which I bear to thee, — 

Words fraught with woe: — aye, now unbind thy hair, 

The streaming signal of thy wild despair : 

For Phoebus' darts, grief-pointed, reek with gore, 

Alas ! alas ! thy sons are now no more. 

But what is this? What means this oozing flood? 

Her daughters, too, are weltering in their blood. 

One clasps a mother's knees ; one clings around 

Her neck ; and one lies prostrate on the^ground ; 

One seeks her breast ; one eyes the coming woe 

And shudders ; one in tremor, crouches low ; 

The seventh is breathing out her latest sigh, 

And life-in-death seems flickering from that eye. 

She — the woe-stricken mother, reft, alone ; 

Erst full of words — is now mute, stiffened stone. 



THE MORNING STAR. 

Farewell bright Phosphor, herald of the morn ! 
Yet soon in Hesper's name again be born — 
By stealth restoring, with thy later ray, 
The charms thine early radiance drove away. 



EPITAPH ON A YOUNG BRIDE. 

Not Hymen, — it was Ades' self alone 
That loosened Clearista's virgin zone : 
And now the evening flutes are breathing round 
Her gate; the closing nuptial doors resound. 
The morning spousal song was raised — but oh ! 
At once 'twas silenced into threnes of woe ; 
And the same torches, which the bridal bed 
Had lit, now showed the pathway to the dead. 



EPITAPH ON HELIODORA. 

Tears, Heliodora ! on thy tomb I shed, 
Love's last libation to the shades below; 

Tears, bitter tears, by fond remembrance fed ; 
Are all that Fate now leaves me to bestow. 



036 PHILODEMUS. [Leot. IX. 

Vain sorrows ! vain regrets ! yet. loveliest thee, 

Thee still they follow in the silent urn, 
Retracing hours of social converse free, 

And soft endearments never to return. 

How thou art torn, sweet flower, that smiled so fair ! 

Torn, and thy honor'd bloom with dust defil'd; 
Yet, holy Earth, accept my suppliant prayer, 

And in a mother's arms enfold thy child. 



EPITAPH ON" AESIGENES. 

Hail, universal mother ! lightly rest 

On that dead form, 
Which when with life invested, ne'er opprest 

Its fellow worm. 



EPITAPH ON" MELEAGER OF GADARA. 

Tyre was my island-nurse — an Attic race 

I boast, though Gadara my native place, — 

Herself an Athens. Eucrates I claim 

For sire, and Meleager is my name. 

From childhood, in the Muse was all my pride: 

I sang ; and with Menippus, side by side, 

Urged my poetic chariot to the goal. 

And why not Syrian? — to the free-born soul 

Our country is the world; and all on earth 

One universal chaos brought to birth. 

Now old, and heedful of th' approaching doom ; 

These lines in memory of my parted bloom, 

I on my picture trace, as on my tomb. 

With Meleager all that is interesting in the poetry of ancient Greece 
ends ; though for nearly six centuries after his death, Greek poets at 
intervals appeared, whose names some fragment, epitaph, or epigram, 
has preserved from oblivion. To such poets, therefore, we shall only- 
very briefly allude. Philodemus, Crinagoras, Zonas of Sardis, Antipha- 
lus, Leonidas of Alexandria, and Philip, the second collector of epigrams, 
and Antipater, both of Thessalonica, all had their birth before the com- 
mencement of the Christian era. 

Philodemus was a native of Gadara, but removed in early life to 
Athens, and afterwards to Rome, where he soon became intimate with 
Piso, and as an expression of his admiration for that nobleman, he wrote 
the following 



50A.D.J ANTIPHILUS. 237 

INVITATION" TO THE ANNIVERSARY OF EPICURUS. 

To-morrow, Piso, at the evening hour, 

Thy friend -will lead thee to his simple bower, 

To keep with feast our annual twentieth night: 
If there you miss the fiask of Chian wine, 
Yet hearty friends you'll meet, and, while you dine, 

Hear strains like those in which the gods delight. 
And, if you kindly look on us the while, 
"We'll reap a richer banquet from thy smile. 

Crinagoras was a native of Mitylene, and flourished at the courts of 
Augustus and Tiberius ; but no fragment of his poetry is important to 
our purpose. 

Zonas also flourished at the court of Tiberius ; but of his history we 
have no farther particulars. He has left us, among other fragments of 
his poetry, the following beautiful lines : 



ON A SHIPWRECKED MARINER. 

Accept a grave in these deserted sands, 
That on thy head I strew with pious hands; 
For to these wintry crags no mother bears 
The decent rites, or mourns thee with her tears. 

Yet on the frowning promontory laid, 
Some pious dues, Alexis, please thy shade ; 
A little sand beside the sounding wave, 
Moisten'd with flowing tears, shall be thy grave. 



Antiphilus was a native of Byzantium, and flourished during the reign 
of Nero, as appears from one of his epigrams, in which he mentions the 
favor conferred by that emperor upon the island of Rhodes. His epi- 
grams, more than forty of which are still extant, are of a high order 
of merit, both in conception and style. The following is extremely 
beautiful : 

ON AN ANCIENT OAK. 

Hail, venerable boughs, that in mid sky, 
Spread broad and deep your leafy canopy! 
Hail, cooL refreshing shade, abode most dear 
To the sun-wearied traveller, wand'ring near ! 
Hail, close inwoven bow'rs, fit dwelling place 
For insect tribes, and man's imperial race! 
Me too, reclining in your green retreat, 
Shield from the blazing day's meridian heat. 



238 ANT I PATER. [Lect. IX. 

Leonidas was born, as he himself informs us, on the banks of the Nile, 
whence he went to Rome, and there taught grammar for many years, 
without attracting any notice ; but at length he became very popular, and 
obtained the patronage of the imperial family. His epigrams, which are 
generally very inferior in point of merit, show that he nourished under 
the reign of Nero, and probably down to that of Vespasian. Several of 
them possess this remarkable peculiarity — each distich contains the same 
number of letters. 

Philip and Antipater were both epigrammatic poets of very considerable 
pretensions. The former, though the author of numerous epigrams, is, 
however, more celebrated as a collector of epigrams than as a writer. 
The Anthology of Philip is in imitation of that of Meleager, and may be 
considered as a sort of supplement to it. The collection contains chiefly 
the epigrams of those poets who lived in, or shortly before, the time of 
Philip himself — commencing with Philodemus, who, as we have already 
observed, was contemporary with Cicero, and ending with Automedon, 
who is supposed to have flourished under Nero. 

Antipater flourished during the latter part of the reign of Augustus, 
through that of Tiberius, and for some time after the accession of Cali- 
gula. His epigrams are usually more important than beautiful, as many 
of them, such as the following, have preserved names and circumstances 
of great interest : 

GREEK POETESSES. 

These the maids of heavenly tongue, 

Rear'd Pierian cliffs among: 

Anyte, as Homer strong, 

Sappho, star of Lesbian song; 

Erinna, famous Telesilla, 

Myro fair, and fair Praxilla; 

Corinna, she that sung of yore, 

The dreadful shield Minerva bore. 

Myrtis sweet, and Nossis, known 

For tender thought and melting tone ; 

Framers all of deathless pages, 

Joys that live for endless ages : 

Kine the Muses famed in heaven, 

And nine to mortals earth has given. 

I 
After the commencement of the Christian era, the annals of literature 
present about twenty-five Grecian poets, some of whom attained to very 
considerable eminence ; but as the design of the present lectures confines 
our investigations to the history of Grecian literature previous to that 
era, we must necessarily omit any farther notice of such poets than the 
simple record of their names. 



100A.D.] GREEK POETS. 239 

The first Christian century produced Parmenion, Onestus, Tullius 
Geminus, iEmilianus Nicgeus, Marcus Argentarius, and Xenocrates of 
Rhodes. 



Parmenion was a native of Macedonia, and of his epigrams fourteen 
remain. These are characterized by brevity, which he himself declares 
that he aimed at ; but unfortunately they want the body, of which brev- 
ity is said to be the soul — wit. 

Onestus, a Corinthian, was also an epigrammatic poet, ten of whose 
epigrams have been preserved. Wine, love, and music, are the subjects 
of which they treat ; but none of them are distinguished for any particular 
beauty. 

Tullius Geminus whose native place is unknown, has ten epigrams in 
the Anthology, most of which are descriptions of works of art, and all are 
written in a very affected manner. 

iEmilianus Nicseus was a native of the town of Nicaea, but nothing 
farther is known of him. Three of his epigrams have been preserved. 

Marcus Argentarius was the author of about thirty of the epigrams in 
the Greek Anthology, most of which are erotic, and some are plays on 
words. Nothing farther is known of him than the age in which he lived. 

Xenocrates of Rhodes was the author of the following exquisite epi- 
gram in the Greek Anthology ; but nothing farther is known of him. 

ON A DAUGHTER DROWNED AT SEA. 

Cold on the wild wave floats thy virgin form, 

Drench'd are thine auburn tresses by the storm, 

Poor lost Eliza! in the raging sea, 

Gone was my every joy and hope with thee ! 

These sad recording stones thy fate deplore, 

Thy bones are wafted to some distant shore ; 

"What bitter sorrows did thy father prove, 

Who brought thee, destined for a bridegroom's love ! 

Sorrowing he came — nor to the youth forlorn 

Consign'd a maid to love, or corpse to mourn. 

In the second century we have Lucian, Dionysius, Strato, Philostratus, 
Carphyllides,and Rufinus. 

Lucian, a witty and voluminous Greek writer, but of Syrian parentage, 
having been born, as he himself informs us, at Samosata, the capital of 



040 GREEK POETS. [Lect. IX. 

Commagene. His works embraced, almost every variety of composition, 
including Rhetoric, Criticisms, Biography, Romances, Dialogues, Mis- 
cellanies, and Poems, including all varieties, from a tragedy to an 
epigram. He was of poor parents, and commenced life as a sculptor ; 
but leaving his original employment he turned his attention to study, and 
attained to a degree of eminence not inferior to many of the early Greek 
writers. 

Dionysius was the author of a number of minor poems, some of which 
are of very considerable merit, particularly a hymn to Apollo. 

Philostratus nourished at the court of the emperor Severus, and is 
chiefly memorable for being the author of the original poem from which 
Ben Jonson borrowed his celebrated ballad ' To Celia' — 

Drink to me only with thine eyes, &a. 

Strato was a native of Sardis ; and besides forming an Anthology out 
of the works of earlier poets, he was an extensive writer of epigrams 
himself. Some of his own epigrams are very elegant ; but nothing can 
redeem the disgrace that attaches to the moral character of his compila- 
tion. 

Rufinus was the author of thirty-eight of the epigrams in the Greek 
Anthology, all of which are of a character strikingly similar to those of 
Strato. 

Carphyllides was the writer of two very elegant epigrams still pre- 
served in the Greek Anthology, the former of which follows; but of the 
author we have no farther knowledge : 



ON A HAPPY OLD MAN. 

Think not, whoe'er thou art, my fate severe ; 
Nor o'er my marble stop to shed a tear ! 
One tender partner shared my happy state, 
And all that life imposes, but its weight. 
Three lovely girls in nuptial ties I bound, 
And children's children smiled my board around. 
And often pillow'd on their grandsire's breast, 
Their darling offspring sunk to sweetest rest. 
Disease and death were strangers to my door, 
Nor from my arms one blooming infant tore. 
All, all survived, my dying eyes to close, 
And hymn my spirit to a blest repose. 

The third and fourth centuries afford us only Lueillius, Gregory of 
Nazianzus, Julian, Prefect of Egypt, and Palladas. 



300A.D.] GREEK POETS. 241 

Lucillius, was the author of numerous epigrams, no less than one hun- 
dred and twenty of those preserved in the Greek Anthology being at- 
tributed to him. They are nearly all sportive in their character, and 
many of them are aimed at the grammarians, who at that time abounded 
in Rome. 

Gregory of Nazianzus was a native of Cappadocia, and became first, 
bishop of Sasima, and afterwards of Nazianzus. His writings were very 
numerous, and embraced Treatises on doctrinal theology, Treatises on 
practical Christianity, Sermons, Letters, Biographies, and Poems. l The 
title of Saint,' says Gibbon, ' has been added to his name ; but the tender- 
ness of his heart, and the elegance of his genius, reflect a more pleasing 
lustre on his memory.' 

Julian, Prefect of Egypt, was the author of seventy-one epigrams, 
written in imitation of earlier Greek poems of the same kind. They are 
mostly of a descriptive character, and generally refer to works of art. 

Palladas wrote a large number of epigrams preserved in the Greek 
Anthology, the real characteristic of which is a sort of elegant mediocrity. 
The following may serve as a specimen of the whole : 



ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE. 

This life a theatre we "well may call, 

Where every actor must perform -with art, 

Or laugh it through, and make a farce of all, 
Or learn to bear with grace his tragic part. 

In. the fifth century we have Musseus, Agathias, Macedonius, Paul the 
Silentiary, Marianus Scholasticus, and Democharis. 

Musseus was the author of a very celebrated Greek poem on the loves 
of Hero and Leander ; but of his personal history nothing is known far- 
ther than that his profession was that of grammarian, or, as we should 
now, with more propriety, style it, a professor of Belles Lettres. The 
poem itself is of such rare merit, and has so much of the air of antiquity, 
that the elder Scaliger supposed it to be the work of the ancient Athe- 
nian bard. 

Agathias was the son of Mamnonius, a rhetorician, and was born at 
Myrina, a town at the mouth of the river Pythicus, in Aeolia, 537 A.B. 
He studied literature at Alexandria, but afterwards removed to Con- 
stantinople, where he devoted the rest of his life to the practice of the 
law. Besides numerous poems of partial merit, Agathias wrote the his- 

16 



242 GREEK POETS. [Lect. IX. 

tory of six years of the reign of Justinian — a work of very great intrin- 
sic merit He was also, as we have already observed, the collector of 
one of the most valuable of the G-reek Anthologies. 

Macedonius was a native of Thessalonica, and is mentioned by Suidas 
as a contemporary of Agathias. The Anthology contains forty-three of 
his epigrams, most of which are of an erotic character, and in an elegant 
style. Macedonius was surnamed the Consul. 

Paul the Silentiary, held an office in the Court of Justinian corre- 
sponding to that of gentleman usher. He was a courtier and voluptu- 
ary ; and though a man of genius, his poetry all partakes of his character 
and habits. 

Marianus Scholasticus was the writer of five of the epigrams in the 
Greek Anthology, four of which are descriptions of the groves and baths 
of Eros, in the suburbs of Amasea in Pontus, and are remarkable for 
the delicacy of their descriptions. Marianus also wrote paraphrases of 
the poems of Theocritus, Aratus, and other poets of the Alexandrian 
school. 

Democharis, an epigrammatic poet, was professionally a grammarian, 
and was a disciple of Agathias; but of his history nothing more is 
known. He was the author of the following beautiful epigram — a fit 
theme with which to close our remarks on this department of Grecian 
literature : 

ON THE PICTURE OF SAPPHO. 

Nature herself this magic portrait drew, 
And painter ! gave thy Lesbian muse to view. 
Light sparkles in her eyes ; and Fancy seems 
The radiant fountain of those living beams: 
Through the smooth fulness of the unclouded skin 
Looks out the clear ingenuous soul within; 
Joy melts to fondness in her glistening face, 
And Love and Music breathe a mingled grace. 



£«htrt lift €nty. 

DRAMATIC POETRY. 



EPIO AND DRAMATIC POETRY COMPARED.— ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA. 
— THESPIS.— PHRYNICHUS.— CHCERILUS.— PRATINUS.— ^ESCHYLUS. 

THE spirit of an age is, generally, completely and faithfully repre- 
sented by its poetry : hence the epic poetry of the Greeks belongs to 
a period when, during the continuance of monarchical institutions, the 
minds of the people were impregnated with, and swayed by, legends 
handed down from antiquity. Elegiac, Iambic, and Lyric poetry arose 
in the more stirring and agitated times which accompanied the develop- 
ment of republican governments^ — times in which each individual gave 
vent to his personal desires and wishes, and all the depths of the human 
heart were unlocked by poetic inspirations. Hence, at the summit of 
Greek civilization, at the very prime of Athenian power and freedom, we 
see dramatic poetry spring up as the organ of the prevailing thoughts and 
feelings of the nation, and throw all other varieties of poetry entirely 
into the shade. 

The essence of the drama is activity and energy. It is -not enough, 
as is the case with the other departments of poetry, to describe it as a 
poem, in which characters speak, not the poet ; for this is the case in 
mere dialogue, in which no effect is to be produced, nor catastrophe to. 
be brought about. In epic poetry we never forget that the characters 
belong to another age— -one, perhaps, long gone by. We feel an interest 
in what they do and what they suffer, but only such an interest as we 
should feel in historical characters. The train of incidents follow one 
another in calm, quiet, and regular order ; the action stops at intervals, 
that the scene and the locality may be described. The attention is 
divided, as it were, between animate and inanimate nature. But in dra- 
matic poetry the spectator throws himself into the midst of the events 
which are represented before his eyes. He makes one of the characters ; 
he seems to have a share in their fortunes, just as he would have in real 
life ; he cannot believe that it is not a reality. The scene, the dresses, 



244 DRAMATIC POETRY. [Lect. X. 

the human yoice, the gestures, all combine to realize it to him; and 
hence he actively sympathizes, instead of being only passively moved. 

Dramatic poetry, as the name plainly declares, represents actions 
which are not, as in the epic, merely narrated. They seem to take 
place before the eyes of the spectator ; and yet this external appearance 
is not sufficient to constitute the essential difference between dramatic 
and epic poetry; for, since these events do not really happen at the 
moment of their representation — since the speech and actions of the per- 
sons in the drama are only a fiction of the poet, and, when successful, an 
illusion to the spectator, it would follow that the whole difference turned 
upon a mere deception. 

The essence of this style of poetry has, however, a much deeper 
source. It is found in the state of the poet's mind, engrossed in the 
contemplation of his subject. The epic poet seems to regard the events 
which he relates, from afar, as objects of calm contemplation and admira- 
tion. He is always conscious of the great interval between him and 
them ; while the dramatic poet plunges with his entire soul into the 
fountain of human life, and seems himself to experience the events which 
he exhibits to our view. The reason of this is, that, in the drama, actions, 
as they rise out of the depths of the human heart, are represented as 
completely and as naturally as if they originated in his own breast ; and 
the effect of the actions and fortunes of the personages upon the sym- 
pathies of other persons in the drama itself, is exhibited with such force, 
that the listener feels himself constrained to similar sympathy, and to 
be powerfully attracted by the events of the drama. 

From these considerations it appears that the drama bears a similar 
relation .to epic poetry that sculpture bears to historical painting. It is, 
perhaps, upon the whole, a severer art. It rejects many adventitious 
aids of which the epic may avail itself. It has more unity and sim- 
plicity; its figures stand out more boldly and in stronger relief; but 
then it has no aerial background ; it has no perspective of enchantment ; 
At cannot draw so largely on the imagination of the spectator : it must 
present to the eye, and make palpable to the touch, what the epic poet 
may steep in the rainbow-hues of fancy, and veil, but with a veil of light, 
woven in the looms of his imagination. The epic comprises narration 
and description, and yet must be, in many respects, essentially dramatic. 
The epic poet is the dramatic author and actor combined. The fine 
characteristic speech which Milton puts into the mouth of Moloch, in the 
Second Book of Paradise Lost, proves him to have been possessed of 
high powers of dramatic writing ; and when, after the speech is concluded, 
the poet adds: 



52'7A.O.] DRAMATIC POETRY. 245 

He ended frowning, and his look denounced 
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous 
To less than gods, — 

he personates the character with a power and energy worthy of the 
noblest actor. 

We have already remarked that the epic poet is the dramatist and 
the actor combined ; but he is still more. He must not only write the 
dialogue and create the actors who are to utter it, but he must also erect 
the stage on which they are to tread, and paint the scenes in which they 
are to appear. Still the drama, by the very circumstances which attend 
it, and circumscribe its powers, becomes capable of exciting a more in- 
tense and tremendous interest. Hence, there are pieces of dramatic 
writing which, even in the perusal only, have an overwhelming power to 
which epic poetry cannot attain. Of this, the third act of Othello, and 
the dagger- scene in Macbeth, may be adduced as instances. 

Perhaps, to sum up the whole question, what the epic poet gains in 
expansion and variety, the dramatic poet gains in condensation and inten- 
sity. When Desdemona says to Othello — 

— and yet I fear 
"When your eyes roll so, — 

we have as vivid a portraiture of the Moor's countenance as the most 
elaborate description could give us. Such a description would be meagre 
and unsatisfactory in epic poetry : more diffuse ones would mar the inter- 
est and impede the action of the drama. In the drama the grand pivot 
upon which the whole moves is action ; in epic poetry it is narration. 
Narration is the fitter medium for representing a grand series of events ; 
and action,, for exhibiting the power and progress of a passion, or the 
consequences of an incident. Hence, the siege of Troy, and the loss of 
Paradise, are epic subjects; and the chaining of Prometheus, and the 
jealousy of Othello, are dramatic ones. The epic poet takes the loftier 
flight ; the dramatic treads with the firmer step. The one dazzles, the 
other touches us. The epic is wondered at ; the dramatic is felt. We 
lift the successful author of the former like a conqueror above our heads, 
but clasp the latter, as a brother to our hearts. 

From these general remarks upon the relation that epic and dramatic 
poetry bear to each other, we pass to notice the origin of the drama. 

The Greek drama evidently originated in the satyric worship of the 
gods, and particularly in that of Bacchus. Indeed, in that worship are 
found many dramatic elements. The gods were supposed to dwell in 
their temples, and participate in their festivals ; and it was not consid- 



246 DRAMATIC POETRY. [Lect. X. 

ered presumptuous or unbecoming to represent them as acting like human 
beings. The Eleusinian mysteries were, as Clemens of Alexandria ex- 
presses it, nothing else than a ' mystical drama,' in which the history of 
Demeter and Core was acted, like a play, by priests and priestesses, 
though probably only in mimic action, illustrated by a few significant sen- 
tences of a symbolic nature, and by the singing of hymns. These repre- 
sentations did not, however, assume a distinct dramatic feature until 535 
A.C., when Thespis, a native of Icaria, a small village near Athens, by 
banishing the rude satyrs of Bceotia, and introducing a single speaker in 
connection with the lyric chorus, laid the foundation of that tragic drama 
whose triumphs run parallel with the glory and splendor of Athens — 
commencing just before the beginning of the contest between the Greeks 
and the Persians, and ending with the downfall of Athens at the close of 
the Peloponnesian war. 

Before the commencement of the Persian war, however, the Athenians 
had been rendered familiar with the poems of Homer by Pisistratus ; and 
this event, combined with other causes, such as the foundation of a public 
library, the erection of public buildings, and the institution of public gar- 
dens, combined to create, with apparent suddenness, among a susceptible 
and lively population, a general cultivation of taste. The citizens were 
brought together in their hours of relaxation by their urbane and social 
manners of life, under porticos and in gardens, which it was the policy of 
a graceful and benignant tyrant to inculcate ; and the native genius, hith- 
erto dormant, of the quick Ionian race, once awakened to literary and in- 
tellectual objects, created an audience even before it found expression in 
a poet. The elegant effeminacy of Hipparchus contributed to foster the 
taste of the people ; for the example of the great is nowhere more potent 
over the multitude than in the cultivation of the arts. Anacreon and 
Simonides introduced among the Athenians by Hipparchus, and enjoying 
his friendship, doubtless added largely to the influence which poetry now 
began to assume. The peculiar sweetness of these poets imbued with 
harmonious contagion the genius of the first of the Athenian dramatists, 
whose works, unfortunately, are now lost, though abundant evidence of 
their character is preserved. 

About the same time the Athenians must necessarily have been made 
more intimately acquainted with the various wealth of the lyric poets of 
Ionia and the Grecian islands. Hence, their models in poetry were of two 
kinds— the epic and the lyric ; and in the natural connections of art, it was 
but the next step to accomplish a species of poetry which should attempt 
to unite the two. Happily at this period, Athens possessed a man of true 
genius in the person of Phrynichus the poet, whose attention early circum- 
stances had directed to the rude and primitive order of histrionic recita- 
tions. Phrynichus was a disciple of Thespis, and to him belongs the honor 
of conceiving, out of the elements of the broadest farce, the first grand 



525A.C.] DRAMATIC POETRY. 247 

combinations of the tragic drama. We are not from this, however, to 
conclude that poetry and music were now, for the first time, dedicated to 
religious services ; for, from time immemorial, as far back, perhaps, as 
the grove possessed an altar, and the waters supplied a reed for the pas- 
toral pipe, they had been devoted to the worship of the gods of Greece. 
At the appointed season of festival to each several deity, his praises were 
sung, and his traditionary achievements were recited. 

One of the divinities last introduced into Greece, the mystic and enig- 
matical Bacchus, received the popular and enthusiastic adoration natu- 
rally due to the god of the vineyard, and the ' unbinder of galling cares.' 
His festival, celebrated at the vintage, the most joyous of agricultural 
seasons, was always connected with the most exhilarating associations, 
Dithyrambs, or wild and exulting songs, at first extemporaneous, cele- 
brated the triumphs of the god. By degrees the rude hymn swelled into 
prepared and artful measures, performed by a chorus and dance circling 
round the altar ; and the wild song assumed a lofty and solemn strain, 
adapted to the sanctity of sacrifice and the emblematic majesty of the 
god. At the same time another band, connected with a Phallic proces- 
sion, which, however outwardly obscene, betokened only, at its origin, the 
symbol of fertility, and betrayed the philosophy of some alien or eastern 
creed, implored, in more lively and homely strains, the blessing of the 
prodigal and jovial deity. These ceremonial songs received a wanton and 
wild addition ; as in order, perhaps,, more closely to represent and per- 
sonify the motley march of the Liber Pater, the chorus-singers borrowed 
from the vine-browsing goat which they sacrificed, the hides and horns, 
that furnished forth the merry mimicry of the satyr and the forum. 

Under licence of this disguise the songs became more obscure and 
grotesque, and the mummers vied with each other in obtaining the ap- 
plause of the rural audience, by wild buffoonery and unrestrained jest. 
Whether as the prize of the winner, or as the object of sacrifice, the 
goat or tragos was a sufficiently important personage to bestow upon the 
exhibition the homely name of tragedy or goat-song, destined afterwards 
to be exalted by association with the proudest efforts of human genius. 
And while the dithyramb, yet amid the Dorian tribes, retained the fire 
and dignity of its hereditary character — while in Sicyon it rose in stately 
and mournful measures to the memory of Adrastus, the Argive hero — 
while in Corinth, under the polished rule of Periander, Arion imparted 
to the antique hymn a new character and more scientific music — gradu- 
ally, in Attica, it gave way before the familiar and fantastic humors of 
the satyrs, sometimes abridged to afford greater scope to their exhibi- 
tions, and sometimes attracting the contagion of their burlesques. Still, 
however, we must observe that the tragedy, or goat-song, consisted of two 
parts — the exhibition of the mummers, and the dithyrambic chorus, mov- 
ing in a circle round the altar of Bacchus. 



048 DRAMATIC POETRY. [Lect. X. 

It appears on the whole most probable, that not only this festive cere- 
monial, but also its ancient name of tragedy, had long been familiar in 
Attica, when Thespis surpassed all competitors in the exhibition of these 
rude entertainments. He relieved the monotonous pleasantries of the 
satyric chorus by introducing, usually in his own person, a histrionic tale- 
teller, who, from an elevated platform, and with lively gesticulations, enter- 
tained the audience with some mythological legend. It was so clear that 
during this recital the chorus remained unnecessarily idle and superfluous 
— that the next improvement was as natural in itself as it was important 
in its consequences. This was to make the chorus assist the narrator, by 
occasional questions or remarks. 

Thespis improved the choruses themselves in their professional art. 
He invented dances, which for centuries retained their popularity on the 
stage, and is supposed to have given histrionic disguise to his reciter — 
at first, by the application of pigments to the face — and afterwards, by 
the construction of a rude linen mask. These improvements, chiefly 
mechanical, form the limit to the achievements of Thespis. He did much 
to create a stage, but little to create tragedy, in the proper sense of the 
term. His performances were still of a rude, ludicrous, and homely char- 
acter, and much more akin to the comic than to the tragic. Of that 
which makes the essence of the solemn drama of Athens — its stately plot, 
its gigantic images, its prodigal and sumptuous poetry — of these Thespis 
was not in any way the inventor. 

But Phrynichus, the disciple of Thespis, was a poet. He saw, though 
perhaps dimly and imperfectly, the new career opened to the art ; and 
he may be said to have breathed the immortal spirit into the more 
mechanical forms, when he introduced poetry into the breasts of the 
chorus and the monologue of the actors. Whatever else Phrynichus 
effected is uncertain. The developed plot — the introduction of regular 
dialogue through the medium of a second actor — the pomp and circum- 
stance — the symmetry and climax of the drama, do not appear to have 
appertained to his earlier efforts ; and the great artistical improvements, 
which raised the simple incident to an elaborate structure, of depicted 
narrative and awful catastrophe, are ascribed not to Phrynichus, but to 
iEschylus. If the later works of Phrynichus exhibited these excellences, 
it is because iEschylus had then become his rival, and he caught the 
heavenly light from the new star which was now destined to eclipse him. 

But everything essential was done for the Athenian stage when Phyrn- 
ichufl took it from the satyrs and placed it under the protection of the 
Muse— when, forsaking the humors of the rustic farce, he selected a sol- 
emn subject from the serious legends of the most vivid of all mythologies 
— when he breathed into the familiar measures of the chorus the gran- 
deur and sweetness of the lyric ode — when, in a word, taking nothing from 
Thespis but the stage and the performers, he borrowed his tale from Ho- 



525A.C.] DRAMATIC POETRY. 249 

mer, and his melody from Anacreon. We must not, then, suppose that 
the contest for the goat, and the buffooneries of Thespis, were the real 
origin of tragedy. Born of the epic and lyric song, Homer gave it char- 
acter, and the lyrists language. Thespis and his predecessors only sug- 
gested the form to which the new-born poetry should be applied. 

Thus, under Phrynichus, the drama rose into poetry worthy to exer- 
cise its influence upon poetic emulation, when a young man of noble fam- 
ily and sublime genius, rendered, perhaps, more thoughtful and profound 
by the cultivation of a mystical philosophy which had recently emerged 
from the primitive schools of Ionian wisdom, brought to the rising art 
the united dignity of rank, philosophy, and genius. The youth to whom 
we here allude was iEschylus ; but before we proceed to a farther notice 
of his history and character, we shall here briefly describe his audiences, 
and the form and construction of the magnificent theatre in which his 
august dramas were exhibited. 

The Athenian stage, at first an itinerant platform, was succeeded by .a 
regular theatre of wood, and this wooden structure, by a splendid stone 
edifice, which is said to have been sufficiently capacious to accommodate 
an audience of thirty thousand persons. The theatrical representations 
therein conducted, became a matter of national and universal interest, 
and occurred thrice a year, at three several festivals of Bacchus. But it 
was at the great Dionysia, held at the end of March and the beginning 
of April, that the principal tragic contests took place. At that period, 
as the Athenian drama increased in celebrity, and Athens herself in re- 
nown, the city was filled with visitors, not only from all parts of Greece, 
but also from every land in which the Greek civilization was known. 

The State took the theatre under its own protection as a solemn and 
sacred institution, and so anxious were the people to consecrate wholly 
to the Athenian name the glory of the spectacle, that at the great Dion- 
ysia no foreigner was permitted to dance in the chorus. The chief Ar- 
chon presided over the performances, and to him was awarded the selec- 
tion of the candidates for the prize. Those chosen were allowed three 
actors by lot, and a chorus, the expense of which was undertaken by the 
State, and imposed upon one of the principal persons of each tribe, called 
choragus. The immense theatre, crowded by thousands, tier above tier, 
bench upon bench, was open to the heavens, and commanded, from the 
sloping hill on which it was built, the land and the sea. The actor apos- 
trophised no mimic pasteboard, J)ut the wide expanse of Nature herself — 
the living sun, the mountain air, and the wide and visible iEgean. All 
was proportioned to the gigantic scale of the theatre, and the mighty 
range of the audience. The form was artificially enlarged and height- 
ened, masks of exquisite art and beauty brought before the audience the 
idea of their sculptured gods and heroes, while mechanical inventions 
carried the tones of the voice throughout the various tiers of the theatre. 



250 DRAMATIC POETRY. [Lect. X. 

The exhibition of dramas among the Greeks took place in the open 
day, and the limited length of the plays permitted the performance of no 
less than ten or twelve before the setting of the sun. The sanctity of 
their origin, and the mythological nature of their stories, added some* 
thing of religious solemnity to these spectacles, which were opened by cer- 
emonial sacrifices. Dramatic exhibitions, at least for a considerable 
period, were not, as at present, made hackneyed by constant repetition. 
They were as rare in their occurrence as they were imposing in their 
effects ; nor, unless as a special favor, was a drama, whether tragic or 
comic, that had gained a prize, permitted a second time to be exhibited. 

"With regard to the disposition of the audience in this vast theatre, it 
may be remarked, that, on the lower benches of the semicircle sat the 
archons and magistrates, the senators and priests ; while apart, but on 
seats equally honorable, the gaze of the audience was, from time to time, 
attracted to the illustrious strangers whom the fame of their poets and 
their city had brought to the Dionysia of the Athenians. The youths 
and women had their separate divisions ; the rest of the audience were 
ranged according to their tribes, while the upper galleries were filled by 
the miscellaneous and impatient populace. 

In the orchestra, a space left by the semicircular benches, with wings 
stretching to the right and left before the scene, a small square platform 
served as the altar, to which moved the choral dancers, still retaining the 
attributes of their ancient sanctity. The leader of the chorus took part 
in the dialogue as the representative of the rest, and, occasionally, even 
several of the number were excited into exclamation by the passion of 
the piece. But the principal duty of the chorus was to diversify the dia- 
logue by hymns and dirges to the music of flutes, while in dances far 
more artful than those now in use, they represented by their movements 
the emotions that they sang — thus bringing, as it were, into the harmony 
of action the poetry of language. 

Architectural embellishments of stone, representing a palace with three 
entrances, the central one appropriated to royalty, and the others to 
subordinate rank, usually served for the scene. But at times, when the 
plot demanded a different locality, scenes painted with the utmost art 
and without regard to cost, were easily substituted ; nor were wanting 
the modern contrivances of artificial lightning and thunder — the clouds 
for the gods, and the variety of inventions for the sudden apparition of 
demon agents, whether from above or below, and all the adventitious aid 
which mechanism lends to genius. 

From this digression on the theatre and the audience of Athens, we 
return to iEschylus, perhaps the most brilliant ornament of the Grecian 
drama. It is probable that his high birth, no less than his genius, ena- 
bled him, with the greater facility, to make the imposing and costly ad- 
ditions to the exhibition, which the nature of the poetry demanded; since, 



225A.C] iESCHYLUS. - 251 

while these improvements were rapidly proceeding, the poetical fame of 
JEschylus was still uncrowned. Nor^as it till the fifteenth year after 
his first exhibition that the sublimeslgof the Greek poets obtained the ivy 
chaplet, which had meantime succeeded to the goat and the ox, as the 
prize of the tragic contests. To the monologue of Phrynichus he added 
a second actor ; he curtailed the chorftsses, connected them with the main 
story, and, more important than all ejse",:reduced to simple but systematic 
rules, the progress and development 4f a poem which no longer had for 
its object to please the ear or divert the fancy only, but swept in its 
mighty and irresistible march to besiege passion after passion, and spread 
its empire over the whole soul. 

"When he presented to the public his first tragedy, iEschylus was 
twenty-five years of age ; and he had for his competitors Pratinas and 
Choerilus. They did not, however, long continue the contest ; but on 
one occasion, while the theatre was still a wooden fabric, the press of the 
audience was so great as to break down the platform upon which they 
were seated, in reference to which the following lines — all that now re- 
mains of his poetry — were composed by Pratinas : 

What meaus this tumult ? Why this rage ? 
What thunder shakes the Athenian stage ? 
'Tis frantic Bromius bids me sing; 
He tunes the pipe, he smites the string; 
The Dryads with their chief accord, 
Submit and hail the Drama's Lord. 
Be still! and let distraction cease, 
Nor thus profane the Muse's peace. 
By sacred fiat I preside 
The minstrel's master and his guide: 
He, while the choral strains proceed, 
Shall follow, with responsive reed; 
To measur'd notes, whilst they advance, 
He, in wild maze, shall lead the dance. 
So generals in the front appear, 
Whilst music echoes from the rear. 
Now silence each discordant sound ! 
For, see, with ivy-chaplet crown'd, 
Bacchus appears ! he speaks in me — 
Hear, and obey the god's decree. 

iEschylus, emphatically the father of Greek tragedy, was the son of 
Euphorion, and was born at Eleusis, near Athens, 525 A.C. He was 
contemporary with Simonides and Pindar, and his family was one of the 
most ancient and distinguished of Attica. His father was probably con- 
nected with the worship of Demeter, from which circumstance .ZEschylus 
may very naturally be supposed to have thence received his first religious 
impressions. He was educated in accordance with his high birth and 



252 ^ESCHYLUS. [Lect. X. 

claims to distinction ; and from childhood he was distinguished for the 
ardor of his genius, and the boldness of his spirit. Homer was his first 
model in poetry ; and so great was his admiration for that master of tfre 
poetic art, that he early committed his entire poems to memory ; and his 
bold and aspiring spirit prompted him, with a temerity rarely equalled, 
to attempt, even before he had reached the age of maturity, to rival, in 
his own peculiar strain, the great father of epic poetry himself. Intent 
upon this thought, and while occupied in watching the vineyard, and pro- 
tecting the grapes, Bacchus, the god of the vine, in the midst of the 
youthful poet's slumbers, appeared to him, and invited him to consecrate 
himself to the tragic muse. To this invitation iEschylus willingly lis- 
tened ; and soon produced a tragedy so far transcending in merit any 
other drama that Greece had then witnessed, that its production became 
the comparative era of the dramatic art. iEschylus was at that time, as 
we have already observed, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. 

Soon after this great event in the literary history of Greece trans- 
pired, that country was invaded by the Persians, and the whole thoughts 
of the nation, until the terrors of the invasion had passed, was turned 
towards the defence of their homes, and to their personal safety. iEs- 
chylus, therefore, and his two brothers, Ameinias and Cynaegirus, entered 
the army, and threw all of their personal energy and power into the con- 
test. In the capacity of a soldier, he so remarkably distinguished him- 
self, that, in the picture which the Athenians caused to be painted repre- 
senting the battle of Marathon, his figure held so prominent a place as 
to be at once recognized, even by a casual observer. 

In the battle of Salamis, which occurred ten years after the battle of 
Marathon, Ameinias, the brother of iEschylus, lost one of his arms, but 
was saved from threatened death by the personal courage of iEschylus, 
who attacked the galley of the satrap with whom Ameinias was strug- 
gling, and immediately sank it. In consequence of the valor thus dis- 
played, the assembled army of Greece, immediately after the battle, 
voted to iEschylus the first honor for bravery. Having equally distin- 
guished himself in the battle of Plateea, with which, and the battle of 
Mycale that immediately followed, the war closed ; and iEschylus then 
resumed his original design of devoting all his energies to the ennobling 
of the drama. 

In his literary career iEschylus continued until, according to Suidas 
and Athenaeus, he composed seventy-six tragedies, of which, fortunately, 
seven have escaped the ravages of time. With one of these, The 
Furies, the Athenians were deeply offended, because they supposed it 
contained sentiments of impiety. They cited him, therefore, before the 
chief tribunal of his country, the Areopagus, by which, after a deliberate 
trial, he was pronounced guilty, and sentenced to perpetual banishment. 
But as the sentence was about to be executed, his brother Ameinias pre- 



625 AC.] AESCHYLUS. 253 

sented himself before the judges, and exhibited, in their presence, what 
remained of the arm that had been lost at the battle of Salamis. This 
action revived, with so much vividness, the recollection of the valor of 
the family, that iEschylus was immediately pardoned and restored, not 
only to his former position, but he became, if possible, a greater favorite 
with the public than he had previously been. The remembrance, how- 
ever, of the indignity heaped upon him by a public trial for impiety, in- 
duced him, soon after, to leave Athens, and to retire to the court of 
Hiero the First, king of Syracuse, who being himself a man of genius as 
well as a distinguished patron of literature, received him with the greatest 
delight, and honored him with the most distinguished marks of royal mu- 
nificence. 

During his residence at the court of Syracuse, iEschylus is supposed 
to have written three at least of the most finished and admirable of his 
tragedies; but after the death of Hiero, an event which occurred 
467 A.C., iEschylus returned again to Athens, and resumed his position 
as the leader of the drama, and the chief of its writers. Yast political 
changes had, however, in the meantime, taken place at Athens, the de- 
mocracy having obtained the ascendancy ; the consequence of which was, 
that the high-toned religious and aristocratic strains of iEschylus were 
there no longer popular. 

To these circumstances may be added the rising popularity of So- 
phocles, and the peculiar adaptation of his genius to the prevailing sen- 
timents of the times ; in consequence of which, a tragedy of his having 
been preferred by the judges to one produced by iEschylus, iEschylus 
again returned to Syracuse ; and as his patron Hiero was gone, he re- 
tired to the city of Gela, where, in the midst of that accomplished and 
refined community he passed the remainder of his life. His death oc- 
curred 456 A.C., when in the sixty-ninth year of his age ; and the inhab- 
itants of Gela showed the estimation in which they held his character by 
public solemnities in his honor, and by erecting a noble monument to his 
memory — inscribing upon it an epitaph written by himself. With regard 
to this epitaph it is curious to observe that in it the great poet makes no 
allusion whatever to himself as an author, but mentions, as the highest 
honor to which he had ever attained, and that which he desired to be 
permanently connected with his memory, his exploits as a warrior in the 
battles of Marathon, Artemisium, Salamis, and Platsea. 

The story of the death of iEschylus, as related by all antiquity, is as 
singular as it is interesting and characteristic. He had long been im- 
pressed with the idea that his death would be produced by a stroke 
from heaven ; and, as was his frequent custom, while sitting in deep con- 
templation in one of the public parks of Gela, an eagle, with a tortoise 
in his talons, mistaking the old poet's bald head for the surface of a stone, 
precipitated the tortoise upon it — 



054 ^ESCHYLUS. [Lect. X 

And crushed that brain where tragedy had birth. 

The style of iEschylus is bold, energetic, and sublime, full of gorgeous 
imagery and magnificent expressions, such as became the elevated charac- 
ters of his drama, and the ideas he wished to express. In the turn of 
his expressions, he is more careful to be poetical than grammatical. He 
was peculiarly fond of metaphorical phrases, strange compounds, and 
obsolete language ; so that his diction was much more epic than that of 
either of his great successors in the tragic art ; and he excelled in displaying 
strong feeling and impulses, and describing the awful and the terrible, rather 
than in exhibiting the working of the human mind under the influence of 
complicated and various motives. But notwithstanding the general ele- 
vation of his style, the subordinate characters in his plays, as the watch- 
man in the Agamemnon, and the nurse of Orestes in the Choephori, are 
made to use language fitting their station, and less removed from that of 
common life. 

The characters of JEschylus, like his diction, are sublime and majestic 
in the extreme, — they were gods and heroes of colossal magnitude, 
whose imposing aspect could be endured by the heroes of Marathon and 
Salamis, but was too awful for the contemplation of the next generation, 
who complained that iEschylus' language was not human. Hence, the 
general impression produced by the poetry of iEschylus was rather of a 
religious than of a moral nature ; his personages being both in action and 
suffering, superhuman, and therefore not always fitted to teach practical 
lessons. He produces, indeed, a sort of religious awe, and dread of the 
irresistible power of the gods, to which man is represented as being en- 
tirely subject ; but on the other hand humanity often appears as the sport 
of an irresistible ^destiny, or the victim of a struggle between superior 
beings. Still iEschylus sometimes discloses a providential order of com- 
pensation and retribution, while he always teaches the duty of resigna- 
tion and submission to the will of the gods, and the futility and fatal con- 
sequences of all opposition to it. 

Of the seven dramas of iEschylus still extant, Prometheus is perhaps, 
the most remarkable. In pure and sustained sublimity it is unsurpassed 
in the literature of the world. Two vast demons, according to the fable, 
Strength and Force, accompanied by Yulcan, appear in a remote plain of 
the earth— an unpeopled desert. There, on a sterile and lofty rock, near 
the sea, Prometheus is chained by Yulcan — l a reward for his disposition 
to be tender to mankind.' The date of this doom is cast far back in the 
earliest dawn of time, and Jupiter has but just commenced his reign. 
While Vulcan binds him, Prometheus utters no sound— it is Vulcan, the 
agent of his punishment, that alone complains. Nor is it till the dread 



525A.C.] ^ESCHYLUS. 255 

task is done, and the ministers of Jupiter have retired, that < the god, un- 
awed by the wrath of gods,' bursts forth with his grand apostrophe : 

Oh Air divine ! Oh ye swift-winged Winds, — 
Ye sources of the Rivers, and ye "Waves, 
That dimple o'er old Ocean like his smiles, — 
Mother of all — oh Earth ! and thou the orb, 
All-seeing, of the Sun, behold and witness 

What I, a god, from the stern gods endure. 

***** 

When shall my doom be o'er ? — Be o'er ! — to me 
The Future hides no riddle — nor can woe 
Come unprepared ! It fits me then to brave 
That which must be : for what can turn aside 
The dark course of the grim Necessity ? 

While thus soliloquizing, the air becomes fragrant with odors, and 
faintly stirs with the rustling of approaching wings. The Daughters of 
Ocean, aroused from their grots below, are come to console the Titan. 
They utter many complaints against the dynasty of Jove. Prometheus 
comforts himself by the prediction that the Olympian shall hereafter re- 
quire his services, and that, until himself released from his bondage, he 
will never reveal to his tyrant the danger that menaces his realm ; for 
the vanquished is here described as of a mightier race than the victor, and 
to him are bared the mysteries of the future, which to Jupiter are denied. 
The triumph of Jupiter is the conquest of brute force over knowledge. 

Prometheus then narrates how, by means of his councils, Jupiter had 
gained his sceptre, and the ancient Saturn and his partisans had been 
whelmed beneath the abyss of Tartarus — how he alone had interfered 
with Jupiter to prevent the extermination of the human race (whom alone 
the celestial king disregarded and condemned) — how he had imparted to 
them fire, the seed of all the arts, and exchanged in their breasts the 
terrible knowledge of the future for the beguiling flatteries of hope ; and 
hence his punishment. 

At this time Ocean himself appears : he endeavors unavailingly to 
persuade the Titan to submission to Jupiter. The great spirit of Pro- 
metheus, and his consideration for others, are beautifully individualized 
in his answers to his consoler, whom he warns not to incur the wrath of 
the tyrant by sympathy with the afflicted. Alone again with the Oceanides, 
the latter burst forth in fresh strains of pity : 

The wide earth echoes wailingly, 

Stately and antique were thy fallen race, — 
The wide earth waileth thee ! 

Lo ! from the holy Asian dwelling-place, 
Fall for a godhead's wrongs, the mortal's murmuring tears, 

They mourn within the Colchian land, 
The virgin and the warrior daughters, 

And far remote, the Scythian band, 



256 AESCHYLUS. [Lkot. X. 

Around the broad Moeotian -waters, 

And they who hold in Caucasus their tower, 

Arabia's martial flo-wer 
Hoarse-clamoring 'midst sharp rows of barbed spears. 

One have I seen with equal tortures riven — 

An equal god; in adamantine chains 
Ever and evermore, 

The Titan Atlas, crush'd, sustains 
The mighty mass of mighty heaven, 
And the whirling cataracts roar, 
With a chime to the Titan's groans, 
And the depth that receives them moans: 

And from vaults that the earth are under, 

Black Hades is heard in thunder ; 
While from the founts of white-waved rivers flow 
Melodious sorrows, uniting with his woe. 

Prometheus, in his answer, still farther details the benefits he had con- 
ferred on man, — he arrogates to himself their elevation to intellect and 
reason. He proceeds darkly to dwell on the power of Necessity, guided 
by ' the triform fates and unforgotten Furies,' whom he asserts to be 
sovereign over Jupiter himself. He declares that Jupiter cannot escape 
his doom : ' His doom,' ask the daughters of Ocean ; ' is he not evermore 
to reign V l That thou mayst not learn,' replies the prophet ; ' and in the 
preservation of this secret depends my future freedom !' 

The rejoinder of the chorus is singularly beautiful, and it is with a 
pathos not common to iEschylus, that they contrast their present mourn- 
ful strains with that which they poured 

What time the silence erst was broken, 

Around the baths, and o'er the bed 
To which, won well by many a soft love-token, 
And hymn'd with all the music of delight, 
Our Ocean-sister, bright 

Hesione, was led ! 

At the end of this choral song appears Io, performing her mystic pil- 
grimage. The utter woe and despair of Io are finely contrasted with the 
stern spirit of Prometheus. Her introduction gives rise to those ances- 
tral and traditionary allusions, to which the Greeks were so much at- 
tached. Tn prophesying her fate, Prometheus enters into much beautiful 
descriptive poetry, and commemorates the lineage of the Argive kings. 
After Io's departure, Prometheus renews his defiance to Jupiter, and his 
stern prophecies, that the son of Saturn shall be ' hurled from his realm, 
a forgotten king.' In the midst of these weird denunciations, Mercury 
arrives, charged by Jupiter to learn the nature of that danger which 
Prometheus predicts to him. The Titan bitterly and haughtily defies 



625A.O.J ^ESCHYLUS. 257 

the threats and warnings of the herald, and exults that, whatever be his 
tortures, he is at least immortal, — to be afflicted, but not to die. Mer- 
cury at length departs — the menace of Jupiter is fulfilled — the punishment 
is consummated — and, amid storm and earthquake, both rock and prisoner 
are struck by the lightnings of the god into the deep abyss : 

The earth is made to reel, and rumbling by, 

Bellowing it rolls, the thunder's gathering wrath I 

And the fierce fires glare livid ; and along 

The rocks, the eddies of the sands whirl high, 

Borne by the hurricane, and all the blasts 

Of all the winds leap forth, each hurtling each — 

Met in the wildness of a ghastly war, 

The dark floods blended with the swooping heaven. 

It comes — it comes! on me it speeds — the storm, 

The rushing onslaught of the thunder-god; 

Oh, majesty of earth, my solemn mother ! 

And thou that through the universal void, 

Circlest sweet light, all blessing ; — Earth and Ether, 

Ye I invoke, to know the wrongs I suffer. 

Such is the conclusion of this unequalled drama — perhaps the greatest 
moral poem ever written — sternly and loftily intellectual — and, amid the 
darker and less palpable allegories, presenting to us the superiority of 
an immortal being to all mortal sufferings. Regarded merely as poetry, 
the conception of the Titan of iEschylus has no parallel, except in the 
Fiend of Milton. 

Besides the Prometlwus, we have of the tragedies of JEschylus, 
the Seven against Thebes, the Agamemnon, the Choephori, the Eumen- 
ides, the Supplicants, and the Persians. Our space will not, however, 
allow us to analyze each of these ; and we shall, therefore, only briefly 
notice the ' Agamemnon,' and then close with an extract from the 
' Persians.' 

The opening of the ' Agamemnon,' with the solitary watchman on the 
tower, who, for ten long years, has watched nightly for the beacon-fires 
that were to announce the fall of Ilion, and who now beholds the blaze at 
last, is grand and impressive in the extreme. The description which 
Clytemnestra gives of the progress of these beacon-fires from Troy to 
Argos is, for its picturesque animation, one of the most celebrated in 
iEschylus. Clytemnestra having announced to the chorus the capture 
of Troy, the chorus, half- incredulous, demand what messenger conveyed 
the intelligence. Clytemnestra replies : 

A gleam — a gleam — from Ida's height, 
v By the fire-god sent, it came; 
17 



258 JESCHYLUS. [Lect. X. 

From watch to watch it leap'd that light, 
As a rider rode the flame ! 

It shot through the startled sky, 

And the torch of that blazing glory 
Old Lemnos caught on high, 

On its holy promontory, 
And sent it on, the jocund sign, 
To Athos, mount of Jove divine. 
"Wildly the while it rose from the isle, 
So that the might of the journeying light 
Skimmed over the back of the gleaming brine ! 

Farther and faster speeds it on, 
Till the watch that keep Macistus steep — 
See it burst like a blazing sun ! 
Doth Macistus sleep 
On his tower-clad steep? 
No ! rapid and red doth the wild-fire sweep 
It flashes afar, on the wayward stream 
Of the wild Euripus, the rushing beam! 
It rouses the light on Messapion's height, 
And they feed its breath with the withered heath 
But it may not stay ! 
And away — away — 
It bounds in its freshning might. 
Silent and soon, 
Like a broadening moon, 
It passes in sheen, Asopus green, 
And bursts on Cithseron gray. 
The warder wakes to the signal rays, 
And it swoops from the hill with a broader blaze, 
On — on the fiery glory rode — 
Thy lonely lake, Gorgopis, glowed — 
To Megara's Mount it came ; 
They feed it again, 
And it streams amain — 
A giant beard of flame! 
The headland cliffs that darkly down 
O'er the Saronic waters frown, 
Are pass'd with the swift one's lurid stride, 
And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide, 
With mightier march and fiercer power 
It gain'd Arachne's neighboring tower — 
Thence on our Argive roof its rest it won, 
Of Ida's fire the long-descended son ! 

Bright harbinger of glory and of joy ! 
So first and last with equal honor crown'd, 
In solemn feasts the race-torch circles round. 
And these my heralds ! this my Sign of Peace ! 
Lo ! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece 
Stalk, in stern tumult, through the halls of Troy ! 

In one of the earlier choruses, in which is introduced an episodical 



525A.D.] AESCHYLUS. 259 

allusion to the abduction of Helen, occurs one of those soft passages so 
rare in iEschylus, nor less exquisite than rare. The chorus suppose the 
minstrels of Menelaus thus to lament the loss of Helen : 



And woe the halls, and woe the chiefs, 

And woe the bridal bed ! 
And woe her steps — for once she loved 

The lord whose love she fled ! 
Lo! where, dishonor yet unknown, 
He sits — nor deems his Helen flown, 
Tearless and voiceless on the spot: 
All desert, but he feels it not ! 
Ah! soon alive, to miss and mourn 
The form beyond the ocean borne, 

Shall start the lonely king ! 
And thought shall fill the lost one's room, 
And darkly through the palace gloom 

Shall stalk a ghostly thing. 

Her statues meet, as round they rise, 

The leaden stare of lifeless eyes. 
"Where is their ancient beauty gone? — 
Why loathe his looks the breathing stone ? 
Alas ! the foulness of disgrace 
Hath swept the Venus from her face ! 
And visions in the mournful night 
Shall dupe the heart to false delight, 

A false and melancholy; 
For naught with sadder joy is fraught, 
Than things at night by dreaming brought, 

The wish'd for and the holy. 
Swift from the solitary side, 
The vision and the blessing glide, 
Scarce welcomed ere they sweep, 

Pale, bloodless, dreams, aloft 

On wings unseen and soft, 
Lost wanderers gliding through the paths of sleep. 

The most terrible and impressive scene in this tragedy is, however, in 
the introduction of -Cassandra, who accompanies Agamemnon, and who, 
in the very hour of his return, amid the pomp and joy that welcome ' the 
king of men,' is seized with the prophetic inspiration, and shrieks out 
tfiose ominous warnings, fated ever to be heard in vain. It is she who 
recalls to the chorus, and to the shuddering audience, that it is the house 
of the long-fated Atridae, to which their descendant has returned — ' that 
human shamble house — that bloody floor — that dwelling, abhorred by 
heaven, privy to so many horrors against the most sacred ties ;' the doom 
yet hangs over the inexpiable threshold ; the curse passes from generation 
to generation ; Agamemnon is the victim of his sires. 

Recalling the inhuman banquet served by Atreus to Thyestes of his 



o 6 o ^ESCHYLUS. [Lect. X 

own murdered children, she starts from the mangled spectres on the 
threshold : 

See ye those infants crouching by the floor, 

Like phantom dreams, pale nurslings, that have perish'd 

By kindred hands. 

Gradually her ravings become clearer and clearer, until at last she 
scents the ' blood dripping slaughter within;' a vapor rises to her nostrils, 
as from a charnel-house — her own fate, which she foresees at hand, 
begins to overpower her — her mood softens, and she enters the palace, 
about to become her tomb, with thoughts in which frantic terror has 
yielded to solemn resignation : 

Alas for mortals! what their power and pride? 
A little shadow sweeps it from the earth! 
And if they suffer — why, the fatal hour 
Comes o'er the record like a moisten'd sponge, 
And blots it out; methinks this latter lot 
Affects me deepest. "Well! 'tis pitiful! 

Scarcely has the prophetess withdrawn, than we hear behind the scenes 
the groans of the murdered king, the palace behind is opened, and Cly- 
temnestra is standing, stern and lofty, by the dead body of her lord. 

The ' Persians' is rather picturesque than dramatic, and may be con- 
sidered as a proud triumphal song in favor of Liberty. It portrays the 
defeat of Xerxes, and contains one of the most valuable of historical 
descriptions, in the lines which follow, devoted to the battle of Salamis. 
The speech of Atossa, mother of Xerxes, in which she enumerates the 
offerings to the shade of Darius, is exquisitely beautiful. Nor is there 
less poetry in the invocation of the chorus to the shade of Darius, which 
slowly rises as they conclude. This play was exhibited eight years after 
the battle of Salamis, and whilst the memory of each circumstance de- 
tailed was still present to the minds of the audience ; so that the narrative 
may be considered in some degree as a history of that great event. The 
scene is laid at Susa, and in the vicinity of the tomb of Darius : 



ATOSSA.— CHORUS. 

Atoss. — Indulge me, friends, who -wish to be informed 
Where, in what clime the towers of Athens rise ? 
Chor. — Far in the west, where sits the imperial sun. 
Atoss. — Yet my son willed the conquest of this town. 
Chor.— May, Greece, through all her States, bend to' his power; 
Atoss. — Do they send numerous armies to the field? 
Chor. — Armies, that to the Medes have wrought much woe. 
Atoss. — Have they sufficient treasures in their houses? 



525A.C] JESCHYLUS. 261 

Chor. — Their rich earth is a copious fount of silver. 

Atoss. — Froin'the strong bow, wing they the barbed shaft? 

Chor.— No; but they have stout spears, and massy bucklers. 

Atoss. — What monarch reigns, and who commands their army? 

Chor. — Slaves to no lord, they own no kingly power. 

Atoss. — How can they then resist the invading foes? 

Chor. — So as to destroy the armies of Darius. 

Atoss. — Serious your words to parents, who have sons there. 

Chor. — But if I judge aright, thou soon shalt hear 
Each circumstance; for here's a Persian messenger. 
Tidings, no doubt, he brings of good or ill. 

Enter Messenger. 

Mess. — "Woe to the towns of Asia's peopled realms ! 
Woe to the land of Persia, once the port 
Of boundless wealth ! All, at a blow, has perished ! 
Ah me ! How sad his task, who brings ill tidings. 
But to my tale of woe — I needs must tell it. 
Persians, the whole barbaric host has fallen. 

Chor. — horror, horror, what a train of ills. 

Mess. — I speak not from report ; but these mine eyes 
Beheld the ruin which my tongue would utter. 

Chor. — Alas! Is Ellas then unscathed? And has 
Our arrowy tempest spent its force in vain? 

Mess. — In heaps the unhappy dead lie on the strand, 
Of Salamis, and all the neighboring shores. 

Chor. — Raise the funereal cry, with dismal notes 
Wailing the wretched Persians. how ill 
They plann'd their measures ! All their army perished ! 

Mess. — Salamis, how hateful is thy name ! 
Oh, how my heart groans but to think of Athens ! 

Chor. — How dreadful to her foes? Call to remembrance 
How many Persian dames, wedded in vain, 
Hath Athens of their noble husbands widow'd ? 

Atoss. — Astonish'd with these ills, my voice thus long 
Hath wanted utterance : griefs like these exceed 
The power of speech or question: yet e'en such, 
Inflicted by the gods, must mortal man 
Constrain'd by hard necessity, endure. 
But tell me all, without distraction tell me 
All this calamity, though many a groan 
Burst from thy laboring heart. Who is not fallen? 
What leader must we wail? What sceptred chief 
Dying, hath left his troops without a lord? 

Mess. — Xerxes himself lives, and beholds the light. 

Atoss. — That word beams comfort on my house, a ray 
That brightens through the melancholy gloom. 

Mess. — Artembares, the potent chief that led 
Ten thousand hurse, lies slaughtered on the rocks 
Of rough Sileniae. The great Dadaces, 
Beneath whose standard march'd a thousand horse, 
Pierced by a spear, fell headlong from the ship. 
Tenagon, bravest of the Bactrians, lies 



262 ,ESCHYLI7S. [Lect. X. 

Koll'd on the -wave-worn beach of Ajax's isle. 
Lilaeus, Arsames, Argestes, dash 
With violence in death against the rocks 
"Where nest the silver doves. Arcteus, that dwelt 
Near to the fountains of the Egyptian Nile, 
, Adeues, and Pheresba, and Pharnuchus 

Fell from one ship. Matallus, Chrysa's chief, 

That led his darkening squadrons, thrice ten thousand, 

On jet-black steeds, with purple gore distain'd 

The yellow of his thick and shaggy beard. 

The Magian Arabus, and Artames 

From Bactra, mould'ring on the dreary shore 

Lie low. Amistris and Amphistreus there 

Grasps his war-wearied spear; there prostrate lies 

The illustrious Ariomardus ; long his loss 

Shall Sardis weep ; thy Mysian Sisames, 

And Tharybis, that o'er the burden'd deep 

Led five times fifty vessels ; Lerna gave 

The hero birth, and manly grace adorn'd 

His pleasing form, but low in death he lies, 

Unhappy in his fate. Syennesis, 

Cilicia's warlike chief, who dared to front 

The foremost dangers, singly to the foes 

A terror, there, too, found a glorious death. 

These chieftains to my sad remembrance rise, 

Kelating but a few of many ills. 

Atoss. — This is the height of ill, ah me ! and shame 
To Persia, grief, and lamentation loud. 
But tell me this, afresh renew thy tale : 
What was the number of the Grecian fleet, 
That in fierce conflict their bold barks should dare 
Bush to encounter with the Persian hosts. 

Mess. — Know then, in numbers the barbaric fleet 
Was far superior : in ten squadrons, each 
Of thirty ships, Greece plough'd the deep ; of these 
One held a distant station. Xerxes led 
A thousand ships ; their number well I know ; 
Two hundred more, and seven, that swept the seas 
With speediest sail: this was their full amount. 
And in the engagement seem'd we not secure 
Of victory ? But unequal fortune sunk 
Our scale in fight, discomfitting our host. 

Atoss. — The gods preserve the city of Minerva, 

Mess.— The walls of Athens are impregnable, 
• Their firmest bulwarks her heroic sons. 

Atoss. — Which navy first advanced to the attack? 
Who led to the onset, tell me ; the bold Greeks, 
Or, glorying in his numerous fleet, my son? 

Mess. — Our evil genius, lady, or some god 
Hostile to Persia, led to ev'ry ill. 
Forth from the troops of Athens came a Greek, 
And thus addressed thy son, the imperial Xerxes : 
'Soon as the shades of night descend, the Grecians 



525A.C.] ^ESCHYLUS. 263 

Shall quit their station; rushing to their oars 
They mean to separate, and in secret flight 
Seek safety 1' At these words the royal chief, 
Little conceiving of the wiles of Greece 
And gods averse, to all the naval leaders 
Gave his high charge : — ' Soon as yon sun shall cease 
To dart his radiant beams, and dark'ning night 
Ascends the temple of the sky, arrange 
In three divisions your well-ordered ships, 
And guard each pass, each outlet of the seas : 
Others enring around this rocky isle 
Of Salamis. Should Greece escape her fate, 
And work her way by secret flight, your heads 
Shall answer the neglect.' This harsh command 
He gave, exulting in his mind, nor knew 
What Fate design'd. "With martial discipline 
And prompt obedience, snatching a repast, 
Each mariner fixed well his ready oar. 
Soon as the golden sun was set, and night 
Advanced, each train'd to ply the dashing oar, 
Assumed his seat; in arms each warrior stood, 
Troop cheering troop through all the ships of war. 
Each to the appointed station steers his course ; 
And through the night his naval force each chief 
Fix'd to secure the passes. Night advanced, 
But not by secret flight did Greece attempt 
To escape. The morn, all beauteous to behold, 
Drawn by white steeds bounds o'er the enlightened earth; 
At once from every Greek with glad acclaim 
Burst forth the song of War, whose lofty notes 
The echo of the island rocks return'd, 
Spreading dismay through Persia's hosts, thus fallen 
From their high hopes ; no flight this solemn strain 
Portended, but deliberate valor bent 
On daring battle ; while the trumpet's sound 
Kindled the flames of war. But when their oars, 
The psean ended, with impetuous force 
Dash'd the resounding surges, instant all 
Rush'd on in view: in orderly array 
The squadron on the right first led, behind 
Eode their whole fleet; and now distinct we heard 
From every part this voice of exhortation: 
'Advance ye sons of Greece, from thraldom save, 
Your country, — save your wives, your children save, 
The temples of your gods, the sacred tomb 
Where rest your honor'd ancestors ; this day 
The common cause of all demands your valor ! 
Meantime from Persia's hosts the deep'ning shout 
Answered their shout ; no time for cold delay ; 
But ship 'gainst ship its brazen beak impell'd. 
First to the charge a Grecian galley rush'd; 
III the Phoenician bore the rough attack, 



2G4 ^ESCHYLUS. [Lect. X. 

Its sculptured prow all shatter'd. Each, advanced 

Daring an opposite. The deep array 

Of Persia at the first sustained the encounter ; 

But their throng'd numbers, in the narrow seas 

Confined, want room for action; and, deprived 

Of mutual aid, beaks clash with beaks, and each 

Breaks all the other's oars : with skill disposed 

The Grecian navy circled them around 

In fierce assault; and rushing from its height 

The inverted vessel sinks : the sea no more 

"Wears its accustom'd aspect, with foul wrecks 

And blood disfigured ; floating carcasses 

Roll on the rocky shores : the poor remains 

Of the barbaric armament to flight 

Ply every oar inglorious : onward rush 

The Greeks amidst the ruins of the fleet, 

As through a shoal of fish caught in the net, 

Spreading destruction : the wide ocean o'er 

Waitings are heard, and loud laments, till night 

With darkness on her brow brought grateful truce. 

Should I recount each circumstance of woe, 

Ten times on my unfinished tale the sun 

"Would set ; for be assured that not one day 

Could close the ruin of so vast a host. 

Atoss. Ah, what a boundless sea of woe hath burst 
On Persia, and the whole barbaric race ! 

Mess. These are not half, not half our ills ; on thes. 
Came an assemblage of calamities, 
That sunk us with a double weight of woe. 

Atoss. What fortune can be more unfriendly to us 
Than this ? Say on, what dread calamity 
Sank Persia's host with greater weight of woe. 

Mess. Whoe'er of Persia's warriors glow'd in prime 
Of vig'rous youth, or felt their generous souls 
Expand with courage, or for noble birth 
Shone with distinguish'd lustre, or excell'd 
In firm and duteous loyalty, all these 
Are fall'n, ignobly, miserably fall'n. 

Atoss. Alas, their ruthless fate, unhappy friends! 
But in what manner tell me did they perish? 

Mess. Full against Salamis an isle arises, 
Of small circumference, to the anchor'd bark 
Unfaithful ; on the promontory's brow, 
That overlooks the sea, Pan loves to lead 
The dance : to this the monarch sends these chiefs 
That when the Grecians from their shatter'd ships 
Should here seek shelter, these might hew them down 
An easy conquest, and secure the strand 
To their sea-wearied friends ; ill-judging what 
The event : but when the favoring god to Greece 
Gave the proud glory of this naval fight, 
Instant in all their glitt'ring arms they leap'd 



525A.C] J2SCHYLUS. 265 

From their light ships, and all the island round 
Encompass'd that our bravest stood dismay'd ; 
While broken rocks, whirl'd with tempestuous force, 
And storms of arrows crush'd them ; then the Greeks 
Rush to the attack at once, and furious spread 
The carnage till each mangled Persian fell. 
Deep were the groans of Xerxes when he saw 
This havoc ; for his seat, a lofty mound 
Commanding the wide sea, o'erlooked his host. 
"With rueful cries he rent his royal robes, 
And through his troops embattled on the shore 
Gave signal of retreat ; then started wild, 
And fled disorder'd. To the former ills 
These are fresh miseries to awake thy sighs. 

Atoss. Invidious Fortune, how thy baleful power 
Hath sunk the hopes of Persia! Bitter fruit 
My son hath tasted from his purposed vengeance 
On Athens, famed for arms ; the fatal field 
Of Marathon, red with barbaric blood, 
Sufficed not; that defeat he thought to avenge, 
And pull'd this hideous ruin on his head. 
But tell me, if thou canst, where didst thou leave 
The ships that happily escaped the wreck ? 

Mess. The poor remains of Persia's scatter'd fleet 
Spread ev'ry sail for flight, as the wind drives, 
In wild disorder ; and on land no less 
The ruin'd army ; in Boeotia some, 
With thirst oppress'd, at Crene's cheerful rills 
Were lost; forespent with breathless speed some pass 
The fields of Phocis, some the Doric plain, 
And near the gulf of Melia, the rich vale 
Through which Sperchius rolls his friendly stream. 
Achaia thence and the Thessalian state 
Received our famished train ; the greater part 
Through thirst and hunger perished there, oppress'd 
At once by both : but we our painful steps 
Held onwards to Magnesia, and the land 
Of Macedonia, o'er the ford of Axius, 
And Bolbe's sedgy marshes, and the heights 
Of steep Pangseos, to the realms of Thrace. 
That night, ere yet the season, breathing frore, 
Rush'd winter, and with ice encrusted o'er 
The flood of sacred Strymon : such as own'd 
3STo god till now, awe-struck, with many a prayer 
Adored the earth and sky. When now the troops 
Had ceased their invocations to the gods, 
O'er the stream's solid crystal they began 
Their march; and we, who took our early way, 
Ere the sun darted his warm beams, pass'd safe : 
But when his burning orb with fiery rays 
Unbound the middle current, down they sunk 
Each over other ; happiest he who found 



o 66 iESCHYLUS. [Lect.X. 

The speediest death: the poor remains, that 'scaped, 

With pain through Thrace dragg'd on their toilsome mar ^ 

A feeble few, and reach'd their native soil ; 

So Persia sighs through all her States, and mourns 

Her dearest youth. This is no feigned tale : 

But many of the ills, that burst upon us 

In dreadful vengeance, I refrain to utter. 

Chor. O Fortune, heavy with affliction's load, 
How hath thy foot crush'd all the Persian race ! 

At oss. Ah me, what sorrows for our ruin'd host 
Oppress my soul ! Ye visions of the night, 
Haunting my dreams, how plainly did you show 
These ills ! — You set them in too fair a light. 
Yet since your bidding hath in this prevail'd, 
First to the gods wish I to pour my prayers 
Then to the mighty dead present my off'rings, 
Bringing libations from my house : too late, 
I know, to change the past ; yet for the future, 
If haply better fortune may await it, 
Behooves you, on this sad event, to guide 
Your friends with faithful counsel. Should my son 
Return ere I have finish' d, let your voice 
Speak comfort to him; friendly to his house 
Attend him, nor let sorrow rise on sorrows. 



CHORUS, 



Awful sovereign of the skies, 

"When now o'er Persia's numerous host 

Thou badest the storm with ruin rise, 
All her proud vaunts of glory lost, 

Ecbatana's imperial head 
By thee was wrapt in sorrow's dark'ning shade; 

Through Susa's palaces with loud lament, 

By their soft hands their veils all rent, 

The copious tear the virgins pour, 

That trickles their bare bosoms o'er. 
From her sweet couch up starts the widow'd bride, 

Her lord's loved image rushing on her soul, 
Throws the rich ornaments of youth aside, 

And gives her griefs to flow without control : 
Her griefs not causeless ; for the mighty slain 
Our melting tears demaud, and sorrow-soften'd strain. 

ANTISTB.OPHE. 



Now her wailings wide despair 
Pours these exhausted regions o'er: 

Xerxes, ill-fated, led the war ; 
Xerxes, ill-fated, leads no more ; 



625A.C] iESCHYLUS. 267 

Xerxes sent forth the unwise command, 
The crowded ships unpeopled all the land; 

That land, o'er which Darius held his reign, 

Courting the arts of peace, in vain, 

O'er all his grateful realm adored, 

The stately Susa's gentle lord. 
Black o'er the waves his burden'd vessels sweep, 

For Greece elate the warlike squadrons fly; 
Now crush'd and whelm'd beneath the indignant deep 

The shatter'd wrecks and lifeless heroes lie: 
While, from the arms of Greece escaped, with toil 
The unshelter'd monarch roams o'er Thracia's dreary soil. 

, EPODE. 

The first in battle slain 
By Cychrea's craggy shore 
Through sad constraint, ah me ! forsaken lie, 
All pale and smear'd with gore : — 
Raise high the mournful strain, 
And let the voice of anguish pierce the sky : — 
Or roll beneath the roaring tide, 
By monsters rent of touch abhorr'd; 
While through the widow'd mansion echoing wide 

Sounds the deep groan, and wails its slaughter'd lord: 
Pale with his fears the helpless orphan there 

Gives the full stream of plaintive grief to flow; 
While age its hoary head in deep despair 
Bends, list'ning to the shrieks of woe. 
With sacred awe 
The Persian law 
No more shall Asia's realms revere; 
To their lord's hand 
At his command 
No more the exacted tribute bear. 
Who now falls prostrate at the monarch's throne? 

His regal greatness is no more. 
Now no restraint the wanton tongue shall own, 

Free from the golden curb of power ; 
For on the rocks, wash'd by the beating flood, 
His awe-commanding nobles lie in blood. 



ATOSSA.— CHORUS. 

Atossa. — Whoe'r, my friends, in the rough stream of life 
Hath struggled with affliction, thence is taught 
That, when the flood begins to swell, the heart 
Fondly fears all things; when the fav'ring gale 
Of fortune smooths the current, it expands 
With unsuspecting confidence, and deems 
That gale shall always breathe. So to my eyes 



268 ^ESCHYLUS. [Leot.X. 

AH things now wear a formidable shape, 

And threaten from the gods : my ears are pierc'd 

With sounds far other than of song. Such ills 

Dismay my sick'ning soul: hence from my house 

"Nor glitt'ring car attends me, nor the train 

Of wonted state, while I return, and bear 

Libations soothing, — charms that soothe the dead: 

White milk, and lucid honey, pure-distill'd 

By the wild bee — that craftsman of the flowers : 

The limpid droppings of the virgin fount, 

And this bright liquid from its mountain-mother 

Borne fresh — the joy of the time-honored vine : — 

The pale-green olive's odorous fruit, whose leaves 

Live everlastingly — and those wreathed flowers, 

The smiling infants of the prodigal earth. 



ttttnxt tjrt d&lmttty. 

SOPHOCLES. 

IT was in the very nature of the Athenian drama, as matured and per- 
fected "by JEschylus, to concentrate and absorb almost every variety 
of poetical genius. The old lyrical poetry ceased, in a great measur . 
when tragedy arose ; or rather, tragedy was the complete develc 
the new and perfected consummation of the Dithyrambic ode. . " 
poetry now passed into the choral song, as the epic merged into 
logue and plot of the drama. Hence, at Athens, where audience 
numerous and readers few, every man who felt within himself the 
ration of the poet, would necessarily desire to see his poetry pi,', 
action — assisted with all the pomp of spectacle and music, hallowed by 
the solemnity of a religious festival, and breathed by artists elaborately 
trained to heighten the eloquence of words into the reverent ear of as- 
sembled Greece. 

The career of Sophocles, the most majestic of the Greek poets, was 
eminently felicitous. His birth was noble, his fortune affluent ; his nat- 
ural gifts — genius and beauty — were the rarest that nature bestows on 
man. All the care which the age permitted was lavished on his educa- 
tion. For his feet even, the ordinary obstacles in the path of distinction 
were smoothed away. He entered life under auspices the most propitious 
and poetical. At the age of fifteen he headed the youths who performed 
the triumphal paean round the trophy of Salamis. At twenty-five, when 
the bones of Theseus were borne back to Athens in the galley of the vic- 
torious Cimon, he exhibited his first play, and won the prize from iEschy- 
lus. That haughty genius, indignant at the success of a younger rival, 
soon after retired, as we have already observed, from Athens to Syra- 
cuse ; and though he thence sent some of his dramas to the Athenian 
stage, the absent veteran could but excite less enthusiasm than the young 
aspirant, whose artful and polished genius was more in harmony with the 
reigning taste than the vast but rugged grandeur of JEschylus. Indeed, 



270 SOPHOCLES. [Lect. XI. 

it was impossible for iEschylus, tangibly and visibly, to body forth the 
shadowy Titans, and the obscure sublimity of his designs ; and hence he 
never obtained a popularity on the stage equal to his celebrity as a 
poet. 

For sixty-three years Sophocles continued to exhibit dramas ; twenty 
times he obtained the first prize, and was never degraded to the third. 
The ordinary persecutions of envy itself seem to have spared this fortu- 
nate poet. To him were known neither the mortifications of iEschylus, 
nor the relentless mockery heaped upon Euripides. On his fair name 
the terrible Aristophanes himself aflixed no brand. The sweetness of his 
genius extended indeed to his temper, and personal popularity assisted 
his public triumphs. Nor did he appear to have keenly shared the party 
animosities of the day. His serenity, however, has in it something of 
enviable rather than honorable indifference. He owed his first distinction 
to Cimon, and he served afterwards under Pericles : on his entrance into 
life, he led the youths that circled the trophy of Grecian freedom ; and 
on the verge of death, he calmly assented to the surrender of Athenian 
liberties. Hence Aristophanes, perhaps, mingled more truth than usual 
with his wit, when even in the shades below he says of Sophocles, * He 
was contented here — he is contented there.' A disposition thus facile, 
united with an admirable genius, will, not unfrequently, effect a miracle, 
and reconcile prosperity with fame. 

Critics have greatly erred in representing iEschylus and Sophocles as 
belonging to the same era, and referring both to the age of Pericles. 
These two great poets were formed under the influence of very dif- 
ferent generations ; and if iEschylus lived through the early part of the 
career of 'Sophocles, the accident of longevity by no means warrants us in 
considering them the children of the same age — the creatures of the same 
influences. iEschylus belonged to the race and the period from which 
emerged Miltiades, Themistocles and Aristides — Sophocles to those which 
produced Phidias, Pericles, and Socrates ; — while iEschylus, from the 
grandeur and sublimity of his genius might be called the Miltiades, So- 
phocles, from the calmness of his disposition, and the symmetry and 
stsieliness of his genius, might be entitled the Pericles of poetry. 

Sophocles was a native of the Attic village of Colonus, which was 
situated within a mile of the city of Athens, and the scenery and relig- 
ious associations of which have been described by the poet, in his last, and 
perhaps his greatest work, in a manner which shows how powerful an in- 
fluence his birth-place exercised on the whole current of his genius. The 
date of his birth, according to the most reliable authorities, was 495 A.C. 
His father's name was Sophilus, but with regard to his condition in life, we 
have many very contradictory accounts. According to Aristoxenus, he 
was a carpenter or smith ; and, according to Ister, he was a sword-maker. 



495A.D.] SOPHOCLES. 271 

The probability is, however, that Sophilus followed neither of these 
trades himself, but that, as was very common at that time in Athens, he 
possessed a number of slaves, some of whom may have been employed in 
either of those branches of handicraft. This idea is countenanced by the 
sequel of Sophocles' own life ; for it is not probable that the son of a 
common artificer should have been associated in military command with 
the first men of the State, such as Pericles and Thucydides, and also be- 
cause, if he had been low-born, the comic poets would not have failed to 
expose the fact, and attack him on that ground. To our own mind these 
arguments are entirely conclusive; for the proud Athenians were too 
tenacious to preserve the distinctions of birth, to permit them to be, 
under any circumstances, disregarded. 

But whatever may have been the condition of Sophocles' parents, it 
is evident that he received an education not inferior to that of the sons 
of the most distinguished citizens of Athens. To both of the two leading 
branches of Greek education, music and gymnastics, he was carefully 
trained, in company with the boys of his own age, and in each he gained 
the prize of a garland. Of the skill which he had attained in music and 
dancing in his sixteenth year, and of the perfection of his bodily form^ 
we have conclusive evidence in the fact that, when the Athenians were 
assembled in solemn festival around the trophy which they had set up in 
Salamis to celebrate their victory over the fleet of Xerxes, Sophocles was 
chosen to lead, naked and with lyre in hand, the chorus which danced 
about the trophy and sung the song of triumph. In music Sophocles 
was instructed by the celebrated Lamprus, and he is said, by one of his 
biographers, to have learned the art of tragedy from no less an instructor 
than iEschylus ; but this latter statement means nothing more than that 
Sophocles, having received the art in the form to which it had been ad- 
vanced by iEschylus, made in it other improvements of his own. 

Having attained the twenty-seventh year of his age, and completed 
his preparatory studies, Sophocles now prepared to make his first appear- 
ance as a dramatist. The circumstances were peculiarly interesting ; not 
only from the fact that Sophocles, a comparative youth, came forward as 
the rival of the veteran iEschylus, whose supremacy had been maintained 
during an entire generation, but also from the character of the judges. 
It was, in reality, a contest between the new and the old styles of tragic 
poetry, in which the competitors were the greatest dramatists, with the 
single exception of Shakspeare, that ever wrote, and the umpires were 
the first men, in position and education, of a State in which almost every 
citizen had a nice perception of the beauties of poetry and art. The 
solemnities of the Great Dionysia were rendered more imposing by the 
return of Cimon from his expedition to Scyros, bringing. with him the 
bones of Theseus, the founder of the Attican confederacy. Public ex- 
pectation was so excited respecting the approaching dramatic contest, 



272 SOPHOCLES. [Lect. XI 

and party-feeling ran so high, that Apsephion, the Archon Eponymus, 
whose duty it was to appoint the judges, had not yet ventured to proceed 
to the final act of drawing the lots for their election, when Cimon, with 
his nine colleagues in the command, having entered the theatre, and 
made the customary libations to Dionysus, the Archon detained them 
at the altar, and administered to them the oath appointed for the judges 
in the dramatic contests. After much deliberation, the decision was in 
favor of Sophocles, and the first prize was accordingly bestowed upon 
him. iEschylus, though the second prize was awarded to him, was so 
much mortified at his defeat, that, as has already been observed, he soon 
after left Athens and retired to Sicily. The drama which Sophocles ex- 
hibited on this occasion is supposed to have been the Triptolemm, and 
to have had for its principal subject the institution of the Eletisinian 
mysteries, and the establishment of the worship of Demeter at Athens. 

The date of this contest between Sophocles and IEschylus was 468 
A.C. ; and from that period the former, for nearly thirty years, held, un- 
interruptedly, the supremacy of the Athenian stage. The year 440 A.C. 
may be regarded as the most important in the poet's life. In the spring 
of that year he brought out the earliest and one of the best of his extant 
dramas — the Antigone — a play which afforded the Athenians such satis- 
faction, especially on account of the political wisdom it displayed, that 
they appointed him one of the ten Strategic of whom Pericles was the 
chief, in the .war against the aristocratical faction of Samos. The event 
occurred when Sophocles was fifty-five years of age, and seven years be- 
fore the commencement of the Peloponnesian war. 

Sophocles' genius was not, however, adapted to military pursuits, and 
he, therefore, neither obtained nor sought for any military reputation : 
he would often good-humoredly repeat the judgment of Pericles concern- 
ing him, that he understood the making of poetry, but not the commanding 
of an army. From an anecdote preserved by Athenseus from the Travels 
of the poet Ion, it appears that Sophocles was engaged in bringing up 
the reinforcements from Chios, and that, amidst the occupations of his 
military command, he preserved his wonted tranquillity of mind, and 
found leisure to gratify his voluptuous tastes, and to delight his com- 
rades with his calm and pleasant conversation at their banquets. Indeed 
Sophocles, according to Plutarch, was not ashamed to confess that he had 
no claim to military distinction ; for, when he was serving with Nicias, 
probably in the Sicilian expedition, upon being asked by that general his 
opinion first, in a council of war, as being the oldest of the Strategy he 
replied, < I indeed am the oldest in years, but you in counsel.' 

One of the most interesting incidents connected with this period of the 
life of Sophocles, is the opportunity it afforded him of forming an inti- 
macy with Herodotus, the father of history. Herodotus was still resid- 



495A.C] SOPHOCLES. 273 

ing at Samos when Sophocles sailed thither with the Athenian troops ; 
and, according to Plutarch, so familiar an intercourse subsisted between 
the great poet and the historian during the stay of the former in the is- 
land, 'that, before he left, he composed a complimentary poem for Herod- 
otus, and in it inserted his own age. To sustain this intimacy, Herodo- 
tus afterwards made his visits to Athens very frequent ; and the influ- 
ence of the familiar intercourse between the poet and the historian may 
be still traced in those striking parallelisms in their works which naturally 
arose out of their mutual admiration of each other's genius. 

The latter part of the life of Sophocles, extending from the fifty-sixth 
year of his age till his death, and embracing a period of thirty-four 
years, was that ofhis greatest poetical activity, and to it belong all his 
extant dramas. [Respecting his personal history, however, during this 
period, we have scarcely any details. The excitement of the Pelopon- 
nesian war seems to have had no other influence upon him than to stimu- 
late his literary efforts by the new impulse which it gave to the in- 
tellectual activity of the age ; until that disastrous period after the Sici- 
lian expedition, when the reaction of unsuccessful war abroad led to 
anarchy at home. Then we find him, like others of the chief literary 
men of Athens, joining in the desperate attempt to stay the ruin of their 
country by means of an aristocratic revolution ; although Sophocles took 
no other part in this movement, than to assent to it as a measure of pub- 
lic safety. When the Athenians, on receiving the news of the utter de- 
struction of their Sicilian army, appointed ten of the elders of the city, as 
a sort of committee of public salvation, Sophocles was one of the number. 
As he was then in his eighty-third year, it is not probable, however, that 
he took any active part in their proceedings, or that he was chosen for 
any other reason than for the authority of his name. 

But whatever may have been Sophocles' connection with the establish- 
ment of the oligarchical Council of Four Hundred, in 411 A.C., one 
thing at least, as to his political principles, is evident, and that is, that 
he was an ardent lover of his country. The patriotic sentiments which 
we still admire in his poems, were fully illustrated by his own conduct ; 
for, unlike Simonides and Pindar, iEschylus, Euripides, and Plato, and 
others of the greatest poets and philosophers of Greece, Sophocles would 
never condescend to accept the patronage of monarchs, or to leave his 
country in compliance with their repeated invitations. His affections 
were fixed upon the land that had produced the heroes of Marathon and 
Salamis, whose triumphs were associated with his earliest recollections ; 
and his eminently religious spirit loved to dwell upon the sacred city of 
Athens, and the hallowed groves of his sacred Colonus. In his latter 
days he filled the office of priest to Halon, a native hero, and the gods 
are said to have rewarded his devotion by granting him supernatural re- 
velations. 

18 



274 SOPHOCLES. [Lect. XL 

Towards the close of his life Sophocles was subjected to one of the 
severest and most unnatural trials that his sensitive nature could have 
been summoned to bear. His family consisted of two sons, Iophon, the 
offspring of Nicostrate, a free woman of Athens, and Ariston, by 
Theoris, a native of Sicyon : he had also a grandson named Sophocles, 
the son of Ariston, for whom he showed the greatest affection. Iophon 
who was, by the laws of Athens, his father's rightful heir, jealous of So- 
phocles' love for the son of Ariston, and apprehensive that he intended 
to bestow upon him a large proportion of his property, had him cited 
before a certain court that had jurisdiction in family affairs, to answer to 
the charge of insanity. As. his only reply, Sophocles exclaimed, ' If I 
am Sophocles, I am not beside myself; and if I am beside myself, I am 
not Sophocles ;' and then proceeded to read from his CBdipus at Co- 
tonus, which he had recently written, but had not yet brought out, one of 
its most magnificent passages, upon which the judges not only at once dis- 
missed the case, but also severely rebuked Iophon for his undutiful and 
unnatural conduct. To this incident, and to the forgiveness of his son, 
Sophocles is supposed to allude, in the lines in the ' (Edipus at Colonus,' 
where Antigone pleads with her father, Polynices, as other fathers had 
been induced to forgive their bad children. 

The various accounts of the circumstances attending the death and 
burial of Sophocles are very conflicting, and bear a fictitious and poetical- 
aspect. According to Ister and Neanthes, he was choked by a grape ; 
while Satyrus relates that in a public recitation of the Antigone he sus- 
tained his voice so long without a pause that, through the weakness of 
extreme old age, he lost his breath and his life together; and others 
ascribe his death to the excessive joy which the obtaining of his last po- 
etic prize produced. But whatever may have been the immediate cause 
of his death, it is certain that he lived to pass the ninetieth year of his 
age, and that so great was the respect in which the Athenians held his 
memory, that for many years after they honored it with an annual sacri- 
fice. 

By the universal consent of the best critics, of both ancient and mod- 
ern times, the tragedies of Sophocles are not only the perfection of the 
Greek drama; but they approach, as nearly as is conceivable, to the per- 
fect ideal model of that species of poetry. Such a point of perfection, in 
any art, is always the result of a combination of causes, of which the 
internal impulse of the author's own creative genius is but one. The ex- 
ternal influences which determine the direction of that genius, and give 
the opportunity for its manifestations, must be most carefully considered. 
Among these influences, none is more powerful than the political and 
intellectual character of the age. 



495A.C7J SOPHOCLES. 275 

That point, — in the language of Philip Smith — in the history of states, 
— in which the minds of men, newly set free from traditional dogmatic 
systems, have not yet been given up to the vagaries of unbridled specula- 
tions — in which religious objects and ideas are still looked upon with rev- 
erence, but no longer worshipped at a distance, as too solemn and myste- 
rious for a free and rational contemplation — in which a newly-recovered 
freedom is valued in proportion to the order which forms its rule and 
sanction, and license has not yet overpowered law — in which man firmly, 
but modestly, puts forward his claim to be his own ruler and his own 
priest, to think and work for himself and for his country, controlled only 
by those laws which are needful to hold society together, and to subject 
individual energy to the public welfare — in which successful war has 
roused the spirit, quickened the energies, and increased the resources of 
a people, but prosperity and faction have not yet corrupted the heart and 
dissolved the bonds of society — when the taste, the leisure, and the 
wealth, which demand and encourage the means of refined pleasure, have 
not yet been indulged to that degree of exhaustion which requires more 
exciting and unwholesome stimulants — such is the period which brings 
forth the most perfect productions in literature and art ; such was the 
period which gave birth to Sophocles and Phidias. 

To these external influences, which affected the spirit of the drama as 
it appears in Sophocles, must be added the changes in its form and mech- 
anism, which enlarged its sphere and modified its character. Of these 
changes, the most important was the addition of the third actor, by which 
three persons were allowed to appear on the stage at once, instead of only 
two. This change vastly enlarged the scope of the dramatic action, and, 
indeed, as Mi'iller justly observes, ' it appeared to accomplish all that was 
necessary to the variety and mobility of action in tragedy, without sacri- 
ficing that simplicity and clearness which, in the good ages of antiquity, 
were always held to be the most essential qualities.' By the addition of 
this third actor, the chief person of the drama was brought under two 
conflicting influences, by the force of which both sides of his character 
are at once displayed ; as in the scene where Antigone has to contend at 
the same time with the weakness of Ismene and the tyranny of Creon. 
Even those scenes in which only two actors appear are more significant 
by their relation to the parts of the drama in which the action combines 
all three. 

Sophocles also introduced some very important modifications into the 
choral parts of the drama — raising, according to Suidas, the number of 
the chorus from twelve, to fifteen: he also curtailed the choral odes, 
which, in the tragedies of iEsehylus, occupied a large space, and formed 
a sort of lyric exhibition of the subject, interwoven with the dramatic 
representation. His choruses also are less closely connected with the 
general subject and progress of the drama than those of iEsehylus. In 



276 SOPHOCLES. [Lect. XI. 

iEscliylus the chorus is a deeply interested party, often taking a decided 
and even vehement share in the action, and generally involved in the ca- 
tastrophe ; but the chorus of Sophocles has more of the character of a 
spectator, moderator, and judge, comparatively impartial, but sympa- 
thising generally with the chief character of the play, while it explains 
and harmonizes, as far as possible, the feelings of all the actors. 

By such changes as these Sophocles made the tragedy a drama, in the 
proper sense of the word. The interest and progress of the piece centered 
almost entirely in the actions and speeches of the persons on the stage. 
A necessary consequence of this alteration, combined with the addition 
of the third actor, was a much more careful elaboration of the dialogue ; 
and the care bestowed upon this part of the composition, is one of the 
most striking features of the art of Sophocles, whether we regard the 
energy and point of the conversations which take place upon the stage, 
or the vivid pictures of actions occurring elsewhere, which are drawn in 
the speeches of the messengers. It must not, however, be imagined that, 
in bestowing so much care upon the dialogue, and confining their choral 
parts within their proper limits, Sophocles was careless as to the mode 
in which he executed the latter. On the contrary, he appears as if deter- 
mined to use his utmost efforts to compensate, in the beauty of his odes, 
for what he had taken away from them in their length. His early at- 
tainments in music — the period in which his lot was cast, when the great 
cycle of lyric poetry had been completed, and he could take Simonides and 
Pindar as the starting point of his efforts — the majestic choral poetry of 
his great predecessor JEschylus, which he regarded rather as a standard to 
be surpassed, than as a pattern to be imitated — combined with his own 
genius and exquisite taste, to give birth to those brief but perfect effusions 
of lyric poetry, the undisturbed enjoyment of which was reckoned by Aris- 
tophanes as among the choicest fruits of peace. 

The last improvement that we shall notice, made by Sophocles upon 
the representation of the drama, though merely mechanical in its nature, 
was of the utmost importance — the introduction of painted scenes adapted 
to the localities of the play exhibited. The invention of scene-painting is 
expressly attributed to Sophocles, by Aristotle ; and the advantages which 
its introduction gave him over his great predecessor, must be too obvious 
to need any illustration. 

All these external and formal arrangements had necessarily the most 
important influence on the whole spirit and character of the tragedies of 
Sophocles ; as in the works of the first-rate artist, the form is an essential 
part of the substance. But not to dwell any longer on the various char- 
acteristics of the great dramatist, we shall proceed to illustrate our re- 
marks by analysing some of his extant plays, and selecting extracts from 
others. 



495A.C.] SOPHOCLES. 277 

Sophocles, according to Suidas, was the author of one hundred and 
thirteen dramas, comprising both tragedies and satirical plays. Of these 
dramas seven tragedies have been preserved ; and from the estimation in 
which these were held by the ancients, we may naturally infer that they 
were amongst the most valuable of his productions. Midler places them 
in the following chronological order : — Antigone, Electro,, Trachinian 
Women, King (Edipus, Ajax, Philoctetes, and (Edipus at Colonus. 

The ' Antigone' turns entirely on the contest between the interests and 
requirements of the State, and the rights and duties of the family. 
Thebes has successfully repulsed the attack of the Argive army ; but Po- 
lynices, one of her citizens, and a member of the Theban royal family, lies 
dead before the walls among the enemies who had threatened Thebes with 
fire and sword. Creon, the king of Thebes, only follows a custom of the 
Greeks, the object of which was to preserve a State from the attacks of its 
own citizens, when he leaves the enemy of his native land unburied, as a 
prey to dogs and vultures ; yet the manner in which he keeps up this polit- 
ical principle, the excessive severity of the punishment denounced against 
those who wished to bury the corpse, the terrible threats addressed to those 
who watched it, and, still more, the boastful and violent strains in which he 
sets forth and extols his own principles — all this gives us a proof of that 
infatuation of a narrow mind, unenlightened by gentleness of a higher 
nature, which appeared to the Greeks to contain in itself a foreboding of 
'approaching misfortune. But what was to be done by the relations of the 
dead man, the females in his family, on whom the care of the corpse was 
imposed as a religious duty, by the universal law of the Greeks? That 
they shall feel their duty to the family in all its force, and not compre- 
hend what they owed to the State, is in accordance with the natural char- 
acter of women ; but while the one sister, Ismene, only sees the impossi- 
bility of performing the former duty, the great soul of Antigone fires with 
the occasion, and forms resolves of the greatest boldness. Defiance begets 
defiance : Creon's harsh decree calls forth in her breast the most obstinate, 
inflexible self-will, which disregards all consequences, and despises all 
gentler means. In this consists her guilt, which Sophocles does not con- 
ceal ; on the contrary, he brings it prominently before us, and especially 
in the choruses ; but the very reason why Antigone is so highly tragical 
a character is this, that notwithstanding the crime she has committed, 
she appears to us so great and so amiable. The sentinel's description of 
her, how she came to the corpse in the burning heat of the sun, while a 
scorching whirlwind was throwing all nature into confusion, and how she 
raised a shrill cry of woe when she saw that the earth she had scattered 
over it had been taken away, is a picture of a being, who, possessed by 
an ethereal idea as by an irresistible law of nature, blindly follows her 
own noble impulses. 

It must, however, be remembered that it is not the tragical end of this 



278 SOPHOCLES. [Lect. XI. 

great and noble creature, but tlie disclosure of Creon's infatuation, which 
forms the general object of the tragedy ; and that, although Sophocles 
considered Antigone as going beyond what women should dare, he lays 
much more stress on the truth — there is something holy without and 
above tlie State, to which the State should pay respect and reverence — a 
doctrine which Antigone herself declares with irresistible truth and sub- 
limity. Every movement in the course of this piece, which could shake 
Creon in the midst of his madness, and open his eyes to his own situation, 
turns upon this, and is especially directed to him : — the noble security 
with which Antigone, relies on the holiness of her deed ; the sisterly affec- 
tion of Ismene, who would willingly share the consequences of the act ; 
the loving zeal of Hasmon, who is at first prudent and then desperate ; 
the warnings of Tiresias : — all are in vain, till the latter breaks out into 
those prophetic threatenings of misfortune which at last, when it is too 
late, penetrate Creon's hardened heart. Hsemon slays himself on the 
body of Antigone, the death of the mother follows that of her son, and 
Creon is compelled to acknowledge that there are blessings in one's 
family, for which no political wisdom is an adequate substitute. 

A few detached passages is all that our space will allow us to present 
of this important and interesting production. Antigone having been dis- 
covered in her second attempt to bury the remains of her brother, is 
brought before the tyrant, and the following scene is presented : 

CREON.— ANTIGONE.— CHORUS. 

Cr. Answer then, — 

Bending thy head to earth, dost thou confess, 
Or canst deny the charge ? 

Ant. I do confess it 

Freely ; I scorn to disavow the act. 

Cr. Reply with answer brief to one plain question, 
Without evasion. Didst thou know the law, 
That none should do this deed? 

Ant. I knew it well: 

How could I fail to know; it was most plain. 

Cr. Didst thou then dare transgress our royal mandate? 

Ant Ne'er did eternal Jove such laws ordain, 
Or Justice, throned amid th' infernal powers, 
Who on mankind these holier rites imposed, — 
Nor can I deem thine edict armed with power, 
To contravene the firm unwritten laws 
Of the just gods, thyself a weak frail mortal ! 
These are no laws of yesterday, — they live 
For evermore, and none can trace then* birth. 
I would not dare, by mortal threat appalled, 
To violate their sanction, and incur 
The vengeance of the gods. I knew before 



495A.C.] SOPHOCLES 279 

That I must die, though thou hadst ne'er proclaim'd it, 

And if I perish ere th' allotted term, 

I deem that death a blessing. Who that lives, 

Like me, encompassed by unnumbered ills, 

But would account it blessedness to die? 

If then I meet the doom thy laws assign, 

It nothing grieves me. Had I left my brother, 

From my own mother sprung, on the bare earth 

To He unburied, that indeed might grieve me ; 

But for this deed I mourn not. If to thee 

Mine actions seem unwise, 'tis thine own soul 

That errs from wisdom, when it deems me senseless. 

Oh. This maiden shows her father's stubborn soul, 
And scorns to bend beneath misfortune's power. 

Cr. Yet thou might'st know, that loftiest spirits oft 
Are bowed to deepest shame ; and thou might'st mark 
The hardest metal soft and ductile made 
By the resistless energy of flame ; 
Oft, t too, the fiery courser have I seen 
By a small bit constrained. High arrogant thoughts 
Beseem not one, whose duty is submission. 
In this presumption she was lessoned first 
When our imperial laws she dared to spurn, 
And to that insolent wrong fresh insult adds, 
In that she glories, vaunting of the deed. 
Henceforth no more deem mine a manly soul ; — 
Concede that name to hers, if from this crime 
She shall escape unpunished. Though she spring 
From our own sister, she shall not evade 
A shameful death. 

Ant. And welcome ! Whence could I 

Obtain a holier praise than by committing 
My brother to the tomb ? These, too, I know 
Would all approve the action, but that fear 
Curbs their free thoughts to base and servile silence ; 
But 'tis the noble privilege of tyrants 
To say and do whate'er their lordly will, 
Their only law, may prompt. 

Cr. Of all the Thebans 

Dost thou alone see this ? 

Ant. They, too, behold it, 

But fear constrains them to an abject silence. 

Cr. Doth it not shame thee to dissent from these ? 

Ant. I cannot think it shame to love my brother. 

Cr. Was not he too, who died for Thebes, thy brother ? 

Ant. He was; and of the self-same parents born. 

Cr. Why then dishonor him to grace the guilty ? 

Ant. The dead entombed will not attest thy words. 

Cr. Yes ; if thou honor with an equal doom 
That impious wretch. 

Ant. He did not fall a slave, 

He was my brother. 



280 SOPHOCLES. [Leot. XI 

Cr. Yet he -wronged his country; 

The other fought undaunted in her cause. 

Ant. Still death at least demands an equal law. 

Cr. Ne'er should the base be honored like the noble. 

Ant. Who knows, if this be holy in the shades ? 

Cr. Death cannot change a foe into a friend. 

Ant. My nature tends to mutual love, not hatred. 

Cr. Then to the grave, and love them, if thou must. 
But while I live no woman shall bear sway. 

CHORUS. 

STROPHE I. 

"What blessedness is theirs, whose earthly date 

Glides unembittered by the taste of woe ! 
But when a house is struck by angry Fate, 

Through all its line what ceaseless miseries flow ! >• 

As when from Thrace rude whirlwinds sweep, 
And in thick darkness wrap the yawning deep, 
Conflicting surges on the strand 
Dash the black mass of boiling sand 
Rolled from the deep abyss, — the rocky shore, 
Struck by the swollen tide, reverberates the roar. 

ANTISTROPHE I. 
I see the ancient miseries of thy race, 

Labdacus ! arising from the dead 
With fresh despair ; nor sires from sons efface 

The curse some angry power hath rivetted 
Forever on thy destined line! 
Once more a cheering radiance seemed to shine 
O'er the last relic of thy name ; — 
This, too, the Powers of Darkness claim, 
Cut off by Hell's keen scythe combined 
With haughty words unwise, and frenzy of the mind. 

STROPHE II. 

Can mortal arrogance restrain 

Thy matchless might, imperial Jove ! 
Which all-subduing sleep assaults in vain, 

And months celestial, as they move, 
In never-wearied train : — 

Spurning the power of age, enthroned in might, 
Thou dwell'st 'mid heaven's broad light. 
Tins was, in ages past, thy firm decree, 
Is now, and must forever be ; 
That none of mortal race on earth shall know, 
A life of joy serene, a course unmarked by woe. 

ANTISTROPHE. II. 
. Hope beams with ever-varying ray ; 
Now fraught with blessings to mankind, 



495 A.C.J SOPHOCLES. 281 

Now with vain dreams that lure but to betray ; — 

And man pursues, with ardor blind, 
Her still deluding way, 
Till on the latent flame he treads dismayed. 
Wisely the sage hath said, 

And time hath proved his truth, that when by heaven 
To woe man's darkened soul is driven, 
Evil seems good to his distorted mind, 
Till soon he meets and mourns the doom by fate assigned. 
But lo! the youngest of thy sons, 
Haemon advances — comes he wrung with grief 
For the impending doom 
Of his fair plighted bride, Antigone, 
And mourning much his blasted nuptial joys ! 

Enter Haemon. 

Cr. We soon shall need no prophet to inform us. 
Hearing our doom irrevocably past 
On thy once destined bride, coms't thou my son, 
Incensed against thy father? or, thus acting, 
Still do we share thy reverence ? 

Hce. I am thine, 

And thou, my father, dost direct my youth 
By prudent counsels, which shall ever guide me ; 
Nor any nuptials can with me outweigh 
A father's just command. 

Cr. 'Tis well, my son: 

A mind like this befits thee, to esteem 
All else subservient to a father's will. 
Hence 'tis the prayer, the blessing of mankind, 
To nourish in their homes a duteous race, 
Who on their foes may well requite their wrongs, 
And, as their father, honor friends sincere. 
But he who to a mean and dastard race 
Gives life, engenders to himself regret, 
And much derision to his taunting foes. 
Then do not thou, my son, by love betrayed, 
Debase thy generous nature for a woman; 
But think how joyless is the cold embrace 
Of an unworthy consort. Is there wound 
Which galls more keenly than a faithless friend? 
Spurn, then, this maiden, as a foe abhorred, 
To seek in Hell a more congenial bridegroom. 
Since her have I convicted — her alone 
Of all the city, daring to rebel: 
My people shall not brand their king a liar ! 
She dies. And let her now invoke her Jove, 
Who guards the rights of kindred. If I brook 
Rebellion thus from those allied by blood, 
How strong a plea may strangers justly urge ! 
He who upholds the honor of his house, 
By a strict, impartial justice will be proved 
True to the public weal. Nor can I doubt 



282 SOPHOCLES. [laser. XL 

The man who governs well, yet knows no less 
To render due obedience, will be found 
A just and firm confederate in the storm 
Of peril and of war. Who dares presume 
With insolent pride to trample on the laws, 
Shall never win from me the meed of praise. 
He whom the State elects should be obeyed 
In all his mandates, trivial though they seem, 
Or just or unjust. Of all human ills, 
None is more fraught with woes than anarchy; 
It lays proud States in ruin, it subverts 
Contending households ; 'mid the battle-strife 
Scatters the serried ranks, while to the wise, 
Who promptly yield, obedience brings success. 
Still, then, by monarchs this shall be maintained, 
Nor e'er surrendered to a woman's will. 
'Tis better far, if we must fall, to fall 
By man, than thus be branded the weak prey, 
The abject prey, of female conquerors. 

Ch. To us, unless our soul be dull with age, 
Thy words, King, seem well and wisely urged. 

Ha. The gods, my father, have on man bestowed 
Their noblest treasure — Reason. To affirm, 
That in thy words from prudence thou hast swerved, 
Nor power have I, nor knowledge to maintain. 
Such task were meeter from a stranger's lips. 
'Tis mine to guard thine interests ; — to explore 
How each may think, and act, and vent on thee 
His cutting censure. Thine indignant eye 
Appals the people, when their uttered thoughts 
Might haply wound thine ear. But to observe 
These darkly-whispered murmurs is my office. 
'How the whole State laments this helpless maid, 
Of all her sex least worthy of such doom 
As waits her now, for deeds most truly noble; 
Who could not brook to leave her brother slain 
In fight, without a tomb, nor cast his corpse 
A prey to ravening dogs and birds obscene. 
Doth she not merit glory's brightest meed? 
Such is the general sentence. my father, 
No treasure can be dearer to thy son, 
Than thine own prosperous honors. What reflects 
Such pride on children as a generous sire, 
Such joy in parents as a noble offspring ? 
O, then, indulge not thou this mood alone, 
To deem no reasoning cogent save thine own; 
For he who vaunts himself supremely skilled, 
In speech and judgment o'er his fellow-men, 
When weighed in wisdom's balance, is found wanting. 
It cannot shame a mortal, though most wise, 
To learn much from experience, and in much 
Submit. Thou seest the pliant trees, that bow 



495 A.C.] SOPHOCLES. 283 

Beneath the rushing torrent, rise unstripped; 

But all, that stem erect its onward course, 

Uprooted fall and perish. Quell thy wrath — 

Unbend to softer feelings. If one ray 

Of wisdom's light my younger breast illume, 

I deem the man, whose vast expansive mind 

Grasps the whole sphere of knowledge — noblest far ; 

But since such boon is rare, the second praise 

Is this, to learn from those whose words are wise. 

Ch. If he hath spoken wisely, my good lord, 
Tis fit to weigh his reasoning. Thou, too, youth, [To Ilcemon] 
Kegard thy father's. Both have argued well. 

Cr. And must we stoop, in this our cooler age, 
Thus to be lessoned by a beardless boy ? 

Hce. Not stoop to learn injustice. I am young, 
But thou shouldst weigh my actions, not my years. 

Cr. Thou deem'st it justice, then, to favor rebels? 

Hce. Ne'er would I ask thy favor for the guilty. 

Cr. Is not this maiden stained with manifest guilt? 

Hce. The general voice of Thebes repels the charge. 

Cr. Shall then the city dictate laws to me? 

Hce. Do not thy words betray a very youth ? 

Cr. Should I, or should another, sway the State ? 

Hce. That is no State, which crouches to one despot ! 

Cr. Is not a monarch master of his State ? 

Hce. How nobly would'st thou lord it o'er a desert ! 

Cr. Behold, I pray you, how this doughty warrior 
Strives in a woman's cause. 

Hce. Art thou a woman? 

I strive for none, save thee. 

Cr. Oh thou most vile ! 

"Wouldst thou withstand thy father ? 

Hce. "When I see 

My father swerve from justice. 

Cr. Do I err, 

Revering mine own laws ? 

Hce. Dost thou revere them, 

When thou wouldst trample on the laws of heaven ? 

Cr. thou degenerate wretch ! thou woman's slave 1 

Hce. Ne'er shall thou find me the vile slave of baseness % 

Cr. Thou ne'er shalt wed her living. 

Hce. If she die, 

Her death shall crush another. 

Cr. Daring villian, 

Dost thou proceed to threats ? 

Hce. And does he threat 

"Who but refutes vain counsels? 

Cr. At thy cost, 

Shalt thou reprove me, void thyself of sense. 

Hce. Now, but thou art my father, I would say 
That thou art most unwise. 

Cr. Hence, woman's slave ! 

And prate no more to me. 



284 SOPHOCLES. [Lect. XL 

Ha. "Wouldst thou then speak 
"Whate'er thou list, and not endure reply ? 

Cr. Aye, is it true ? Then by Olympian Jove, 
I swear thou shalt not beard me thus unpunished ! 
Ho ! bring that hated thing, that she may die, 
E'en in the presence of her doting bridegroom. 

Ha. Believe it not. Before mine eyes at least, 
She shall not die, nor thou such dream indulge ; 
I quit thy sight forever. They who list 
May stand the tame spectators of thy madness. [Exit Hamon. 

Ch. The youth has passed, my lord, in desperate wrath ; 
A soul like his may rush from rankling grief 
To deeds of frenzy. 

Cr. Let him do, and dare 

Beyond the power of man, he shall not save her. 

Ch. What death dost thou design her ? 

Cr. To a spot 

By mortal foot untrodden, will I lead her ; 
And deep immure her in a rocky cave, 
Leaving enough of sustenance to provide 
A due atonement, that the State may shun 
Pollution from her death. There let her call 
On gloomy Hades, the sole power she owns, 
To shield her from her doom; or learn, though late, 
At least this lesson; 'tis a bootless task 
To render homage to the powers of hell. 

***** 

[Antigone is brought in guarded.'] 

STROPHE I. 

Ant. Behold me, princes of my native land ! 
Treading the last sad path, 
And gazing on the latest beam 
Of yon resplendent sun — 
To gaze no more forever ! The stern hand 
Of all-entombing Death 
Impels me — living still — 
To Acheron's bleak shore — ungraced 
By nuptial rites : — no hymeneal strain 
Hath hymned my hour of bliss. 
And joyless Death will be my bridegroom now. 

Ch. Therefore, with endless praise renowned, 
To those drear regions wilt thou pass; 
Unwasted aught by slow disease, 
L T nwounded by avenging sword, 
Spontaneous, living, sole of mortal birth, 
Shalt thou to death descend. 

ANTISTROPHE I. 

Ant. Yes ! I have heard by how severe a doom 
The Phrygian stranger died 
On Sipylus' bleak brow sublime, 
"Whom, in its cold embrace; 



495 A.C.J SOPHOCLES. o 85 

The creeping rock, like wreathing ivy, strained. 

Her, in chill dews dissolved, 

As antique legends tell, 

Ne'er do th' exhaustless snows desert, 

Nor from her eyes do trickling torrents cease 

To gush. A doom like hers, 

Alas, how like ! hath fate reserved for me. 

Ch. A goddess she, and sprung from gods ; — 
"We, mortal as our fathers were. 
"What matchless fame is thine ! to fall like those 
Of ancestry divine ! 

STROPHE II. 

Ant. Ah me ! I am derided. Why, oh why, 
By my ancestral gods, 
Why do ye mock, ere yet the tomb 
Hath veiled me from your sight? 
O my loved Thebes ! and ye, 
Her lordly habitants ! 

ye Dircsean streams ! 

Thou sacred grove of car -compelling Thebes ! 

1 here invoke you to attest my wrongs, 

How, by my friends unwept, and by what laws, 

I sink into the cavern — gloom 

Of this untimely sepulchre ! 

Me miserable ! 

Outcast from earth, and from the tomb, 

I am not of the living or the dead. 

Ch. Hurried to daring's wild excess, 
Deeply, my daughter, hast thou sinned, 
Against the exalted throne of Right. 
The woes that crushed thy father, fall on thee. 

ANTISTROPHE II. 

Ant. Ah ! thou hast probed mine anguish to the quick, 
The source of all my pangs, 
My father's widely -blazoned fate; 
And the long train of ills, 
Which crushed, in one wide wreck 
The famed Labdacidse! 
Woe for the withering curse 
Of those maternal nuptials, which impelled 
My sire, unconscious, to a parent's couch 1 
From whom I sprung, by birth a very wretch: 

Ch. Religion bids us grace the dead ; 
But might, when regal might bears sway, 
Must never, never, be contemned. 
Thine own unbending pride hath sealed thy doom. 

Ant.^ Unmourned, unfriended, 'reft of bridal joys, 
Despairingly I tread 
The path too well prepared. 
No more forever must I hail thy beams 



286 SOPHOCLES. [Lect. XL 

Thou glad and holy sun! 

Yet to my doom no sorrowing friend accords 

The tribute of a tear. 

Enter Creon. 

Cr. What, know ye not, that none, ere death arrive, 
Would ever cease their plaints, could words avail them? 
Instant conduct her hence ; and, as I bade, 
Immure her in the deep sepulchral cave ; 
There leave her lone and desolate, or to die 
Or live imprisoned in that drear abode. 
We from her death shall thus be pure ; and she 
Shall hold no more communion with the living. 

Ant. tomb ! bridal bed ! dark abode ! 
My ever-during prison ! whither now 
I sink to join my kindred, a sad train, 
Whom Proserpine among the silent dead 
Hath long received ; — of whom the last in time, 
The first in sorrow, I to death descend, 
Ere mine allotted earthly turn be past. 
Yet e'en in death I cherish one warm hope, 
That dear to my loved father I shall come, 
Dear to thee, mother ! and most dear to thee, 
My brother ! for in death my hand received you, 
Your relics laved, your lifeless limbs composed, 
And o'er your tomb libations poured. And now, 
Dear Polynices, I have honored thee 
With funeral rites, and thus do they requite me. 
Yet will not justice blame my pious care; — 
Which of your laws, ye Powers, have I transgressed ? 
Yet wherefore do I turn me to the gods? — 
Whom shall I call to aid me, since I meet 
For pious deeds the vengeance of the guilty? 
If acts like these are sanctioned by the gods, 
I will address me to my doom in silence ; 
If not, and these offend, may heaven requite 
On them such evils as they wreak on me. 

Ch. The same wild storms of frenzied rage 
Distract the unhappy maniac still. 

Cr. For this the lingering slaves ere long 
Shall learn in tears to mourn their vain delay. 

Ant. Alas ! death cannot be dissevered far 
From that appalling threat. 

Cr. Aye, I would warn thee not to hope 
The doom, once sealed, may be reversed. 

Ant. Thebes, proud city of my sires 1 
tutelary gods! 

They force me hence, and respite is denied. 
Behold, ye rulers of imperial Thebes, 
The last sad daughter of a royal line, 
What fearful wrongs I suffer, and from whdm; — 
My only crime a pious deed. 



495A.C.] SOPHOCLES. 287 

At the close of this scene Antigone is led to a cavern in a rock, where 
she is destined to perish. Meantime Tiresias, the prophet, tells Creon 
that his relentless soul has become the terror and plague of the whole 
country ; and this, with warnings from other messengers also, works so 
powerfully upon the mind of Creon, that he finally relents, and goes to 
the cavern to release Antigone. His relentings came, however, too late 
— Antigone's sufferings have already terminated in death, and by her 
side the tyrant beholds the lifeless remains of her devoted Hsemon. 
While Creon is contemplating this awful catastrophe, a messenger enters, 
announcing the death of the queen ; and with the scene that follows the 
tragedy ends : 

Enter Messenger. 

Mess. Sorrows are deepening round thee, my lord, — 
One source of bitterest grief thy hands sustain; 
One waits within which thou must soon behold. 

Or. What yet remains to dreg the cup of sorrow ? 

Mess. Thy queen, the mother of this lifeless youth, 
Hath died, unhappy, by a recent wound. 

ANTISTROPHE I. 

Cr. Oh ! thou inexpiable home of death, 
Why dost thou crush me thus ? 

herald of o'er whelming woes 
What horrors dost thou bring? — 

Why, why press down a wretch already lost? 
What hast thou said ? What new despair, 
Redoubling woes on woes ? — 
And to a murdered son 

Doest thou then add my wife's destruction too? — 
Mess. Thou mayst behold her, now no more, within. 

ANTISTROPHE II. 

Cr. Alas ! I gaze upon a second woe. 
What doom, ah! what awaits the victim still? 
In these sad hands a lifeless son I bear, 
There mark another recent corpse — woe ! woe ! 
Sad mother! wretched son! 

Mess. Before the hallowed altars, in wild wrath 
She fell — and closed her eyes in Death's dull night, 
Deploring first, indeed, th' illustrious bed 
Of Megareus— long since to death consigned ; 
Then this her hapless son, — last on thy head 
She imprecated curses, and proclaimed thee 
The murderer of thy child ! 

. STROPHE III. 

Cr. Woe ! woe is me ! 

1 quake with horror. Will no friendly hand 



288 SOPHOCLES. [Lkot. XL 

In mercy plunge deep, deep the two-edged sword? 

I am a very wretch, 

Condemned to struggle with o'ermastering woes ! 

Mess. Ere yet she perished, with her parting breath, 
She charged on thee the fatal doom of both. 

Cr. And by what means did death relieve her sorrows ? 

Mess. Deep in her side she buried the keen sword, 
Soon as her son's lamented doom she heard. 

STROPHE IV. 

Cr. "Wretch that I am! the guilt is all mine own, 
None shared the deadly deed ! 
I am alone the blood-stained homicide; 
'Tis all too clear — ! lead me hence, 
Attendants, bear me hence! away — away — 
For I am nothing now! 

Ch. "Well dost thou judge, if in despair like thine 
Aught can be well, for heaviest evils press 
"With lighter burden, when from sight removed. 

ANTISTROPHE III. 

Cr. Come, then, come, 

Shine forth, thou last and lightest of my woes, 
Bringing the final and most welcome hour 
Of suffering ! Come, come, 
That I may view the light of heaven no more. 

Ch. These cares respect the future — first befits 
To weigh with prudent thought the present crisis. 
Let those direct on whom such charge devolves. 

Cr. "What most my soul desires, I did but make 
My first and warmest prayer. 

Ch. Pray now for nothing — 

There is no refuge for devoted man, 
When fate consigns him to a doom of woe. 

ANTISTROPHE IV. 

Cr. Lead hence this lifeless shade, far, far away. 
"Who, though unwilling all, 
Slew thee, my son ! thee, too, wife beloved ! 
Ah! wretch! I know not where to look, 
Or whither fly. All are against me now — 
Fate is itself my foe. 

Ch. There is no guide to happiness on earth, 
Save wisdom; nor behoves it us to fail 
In reverence to the gods ! High-sounding vaunts 
Inflict due vengeance on the haughty head, 
And teach late wisdom to its dark old age. 

It may be proper to remark, that the Chorus in this interesting 
tragedy was composed of some of the principal citizens of Thebes. 



495A.C] SOPHOCLES. 289 

selected for their known attachment and fidelity to the house of Lab- 
dacus, and summoned by Creon, as they imagined, to a council ; but 
they soon discovered that he had convened them only to give their 
sanction to his inhuman and impious edict. They seemed, indeed, dis- 
posed to vindicate the action of Antigone by ascribing it to the im- 
pulse of the gods ; but the king rebukes them harshly, and they become 
submissive even to servility : they had a sense of religion, and of their 
duty, but ' fear had chained their tongues ;' nor till the prophet Tiresias 
had alarmed the fears of the tyrant, and they saw his savage mind begin 
to relent, did they dare to take a decided part in favor of humanity and 
religion. 

We have dwelt so long on the tragedy of l Antigone,' that we can 
devote but a very brief space to Sophocles' remaining plays. 

In the tragedy of ' Electra,' the character of the heroine stands out in 
the boldest contrast to the creation of the Antigone. Both are endowed 
with surpassing majesty and strength of nature. They are loftier than 
the daughters of men ; their very loveliness is of an age when gods were 
no distant ancestors of kings — when, as in the early sculptures of Pallas, 
or even of Aphrodite, something of the severe and stern was deemed 
necessary to the realization of the divine ; and the beautiful had not lost 
the colossal proportions of the grand. But the strength and heroism of 
Antigone is derived from love — love, sober, serene, august — but still 
impassioned love. Electra, on the contrary, is exalted and supported 
above her sex by the might of her hatred. Her father, i the king of 
men,' foully murdered in his palace — herself compelled to consort with 
his murderers — to receive from their hands both charity and insult — the 
adulterous murderer on her father's throne, and lord of her father's 
marriage-bed — her brother a wanderer and an outcast. Such are the 
thoughts unceasingly before her ! — her heart and soul have for years fed 
upon the bitterness of a resentment, at once impotent and intense, and 
nature itself has turned to gall. She sees not in Clytemnestra a mother,, 
but the murderess of a father. The doubt and the compunction of a 
Hamlet are unknown to her more masculine spirit. She lives on, but in 
the hope of her brother's return and of revenge. At length Orestes, 
who had been saved in childhood by his sister Electra, from the designs 
of Clytemnestra and iEgisthus, returns in manhood to his ancestral home. 
He is accompanied by Pylades, and an old attendant ; and they present 
themselves at the habitation of the Pelopidse, just at the dawn of day. 
Here the play opens ; but we shall no farther pursue the subject. 

The following passage from this tragedy — the only one that we shall 
select — contains an animated and faithful picture of an exhibition of the 
Pythian races, and is, on that account, the more interesting and im- 
portant. Orestes had obtained five victories in the first day — in the 

19 



290 SOPHOCLES. [Lect XL 

second he starts with nine competitors in the chariot-race — an Achaean, 
a Spartan, two Lybians — -he himself with Thessalian studs — a sixth from 
iEtolia ; a Magnesian, an (Enian, an Athenian, and a Boeotian, comnlete 
the number : 

They took their stand where the appointed judges 

Had cast their lots, and ranged their rival cars ; 

Rang out the brazen trump ! Away they bound, 

Cheer the hot steeds and shake the darkening reins, 

As with a body the large space is filled 

"With the huge clangor of the rattling cars : 

High whirl aloft the dust-clouds ; blent together 

Each presses each — and the lash rings — and loud 

Snort the wild steeds, and from their fiery breath, 

Along the manes and down the circling wheels/ 

Scatter the flaking foam. Orestes still, 

Aye, as he swept around the perilous pillar 

Last in the course, wheel'd in the rushing axle, 

The left rein curbed — that on the outer hand 

Flung loose. So on erect the chariots rolled ! 

Sudden the GSnian's fierce and headlong steeds 

Broke from the bit, and, as the seventh time now 

The course was circled, on the Lybian car 

Dash'd their wild fronts: then order changed to ruin: 

.Car dashed on car — the wide Crissaean plain 

Was, sea-like, strewn with wrecks ; the Athenian saw, 

Slackened his speed, and, wheeling round the marge, 

Unscathed and skilful, in the midmost space, 

Left the wild tumult of that tossing storm. 

Behind, Orestes, hitherto the last, 

Had yet kept back his coursers for the close; 

Now one sole rival left — on, on he flew, 

And the sharp sound of the impelling scourge 

Rang in the keen ears of the flying steeds. 

He nears — he reaches — they are side by side ; 

Now one — now th' other — by a length the victor. 

The courses all are past — the wheels erect — 

All safe — when as the hurrying coursers round 

The fatal pillar dash'd, the wretched boy 

Slackened the left rein ; on the column's edge 

Crash'd the frail axle — headlong from the car, 

Caught and all meshed within the reins he fell; 

And, masterless, the mad steeds raged along ! 

Loud from that mighty multitude arose 
A shriek — a shout ! But yesterday such deeds — 
To-day such doom ! Now whirled upon the earth, 
Now his limbs dash'd aloft, they dragged him — those 
Wild horses — till all gory from the wheels 
Released — and no man, not his nearest friends, 
-Could in that mangled corpse have traced Orestes. 



495 AC] SOPHOCLES. 291 

They laid the body on the funeral pyre, 

And while we speak, the Phocian strangers bear, 

In a small, brazen, melancholy urn, 

That handful of cold ashes to which all 

The grandeur of the beautiful hath shrunk. 

Within they bore him — in his father's land 

To find that heritage — a tomb ! 

Of the seven extant tragedies of Sophocles, ' The Traehiniae ' is usually 
considered the least imbued with the genius of the author ; and Schlegel 
has even gone so far as to conjecture, but without even plausible testi- 
mony, that Sophocles himself may not have written it. 

The plot of the drama is very simple, and may be soon told. The play 
is opened by Deianira, the wife of Hercules, who indulges in melancholy 
reflections on the misfortunes of her youth, and the continual absence of 
her husband, of whom no tidings have been heard for months. She soon 
learns from her son Hyllus, that Hercules is reported to be leading an 
expedition into Euboea ; and our interest is immediately excited by 
Deianira's reply, which informs us that oracles had foretold that this was 
to be the crisis in the life of Hercules — that he was now to enjoy rest 
from his labors, either in a peaceful home, or in the grave; and she 
sends Hyllus to join his father, and share his enterprise and fate. The 
chorus touchingly paint the anxious love of Deianira in the following 
lines: 

Thou, whom the starry-spangled Night did lull 

Into the sleep from which — her journey done — 
Her parting steps awake thee — beautiful 

Fountain of flame, oh Sun ! 
Say, on what sea-girt strand, or inland shore 
(For earth is bared before thy solemn gaze), 
In orient Asia, or where wilder rays 
Tremble on eastern waters, wandereth he 
"Whom bright Alcmena bore ? 
"Ah! as some bird within a lonely nest 

The desolate wife puts sleep away with tears ; 

And ever ills to.be 
Haunting the absence with dim hosts of fears, 
Fond fancy shapes from air dark prophets of the breast. 



In her answer to the virgin chorus, Deianira weaves a beautiful pic- 
ture of maiden youth, as a contrast to the cares and anxieties of wedded 
life: 

Youth pastures in a valley of its own : 

The scorching sun, the rain and winds of Heaven, 

Mar not the calm — yet virgin of all care ; 

But ever with sweet joys it buildeth up 

The airy halls of life. 



292 SOPHOCLES. [Lect. XI. 

Deianira afterwards receives fresh news of Hercules. She gives way 
to her joy. Lichas, the herald, enters, and confides to her charge some 
maidens whom the hero had captured. Deianira is struck with com- 
passion for their lot, and with admiration of the noble bearing of one of 
them, Iole. She is about to busy herself in preparation for their com- 
fort, when she learns that Iole is her rival — the beloved mistress of 
Hercules. The jealousy evinced by Deianira is beautifully soft and 
womanly. Even in uttering reproach on Hercules, she says she cannot 
feel angry with him, yet how can she dwell in the same house with a 
younger and fairer rival : 

She in whose years the flower that fades in mine 
Opeus the leaves of beauty. 

Her affection, her desire to retain the love of the hero, suggests to 
her remembrance a gift she had once received from a centaur who had 
fallen by the shaft of Hercules. The centaur had assured her the blood 
from his wound, if preserved, would exercise the charm of a filter over 
the heart of Hercules, and would ever recall and fix upon her his affec- 
tions. She, accordingly, steeps, with the supposed charm a robe, which 
she sends to Hercules, as a gift ; but in this fatal resolve she shows all 
the timidity and sweetness of her nature : she even questions if it be a 
crime to regain the heart of her husband ; she consults the chorus who 
advise the experiment. She accordingly sends the garment by Lichas ; 
but scarcely has the herald gone, ere Deianira is terrified by a strange 
phenomena : a part of the wool with which the supposed filter had been 
applied to the garment, was thrown into the sun-light, upon which it 
withered away — ' crumbling like saw-dust ' — while on the spot where it 
fell a sort of venomous foam froths up. While relating this phenomena 
to the chorus, her son, Hyllus, returns, and informs her of the agonies 
of his father under the poisoned garment. On hearing this news, and 
the reproaches of her son, Deianira steals silently away, and destroys 
herself upon the bridal-bed. 

The beauty of the ' Trachinise ' is in detached passages, in some ex- 
quisite bursts of the chorus, and in the character of Deianira, whose act 
to regain the love of her consort, unhappily as it terminates, is amply re- 
deemed by the meekness of her nature, the delicacy of her sentiment, and 
the anxious, earnest, unreproachful devotion of her heart to conjugal love. 

Of the three tragedies, ' King (Edipus,' 'Ajax,' and l (Edipus at Co- 
lonus,' we shall only remark, that they are all works exhibiting the most 
transcendent dramatic talent, and displaying the author's varied powers 
in the most favorable light. The following passage, the close of Ajax' 
celebrated soliloquy, we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of intro- 
ducing : — 



495A.C.J SOPHOCLES. 293 

And thou that mak'st high heaven thy chariot-course, 

Oh sun — when gazing on my father-land, 

Draw back thy golden rein, and tell my woes 

To the old man, my father — and to her 

Who nursed me at her bosom — my poor mother 1 

There will be wailing through the echoing walls 

When — but away with thoughts like 'these! — the hour 

Brings on the ripening deed. Death, death, look on me ! 

Did I say death ? — it was a waste of words ; 

We shall be friends hereafter. 

'Tis the day, 
Present and breathing round me, and the car 
Of the sweet sun, that never shall again 
Receive my greeting ! — henceforth time is sunless, 
And day a thing that is not ! Beautiful light, 
My Salamis — my country — and the floor 
Of my dear household hearth — and thou, bright Athens, 
,Thou — for thy sons and I were boys together — 
Fountains and rivers, and ye Trojan plains, 
I loved ye as my fosterers — fare ye well ! 
Take in these words, the last earth hears from Ajax — 
All else unspoken, in a spectre land 
I'll whisper to the dead ! 



A brief notice of l Philoctetes' will close our present remarks. This 
play has always been ranked by critics among the most celebrated and 
polished of the tragedies of Sophocles. The plot is as follows : 

Philoctetes, the friend and armor-bearer of Hercules, and the heir of 
that hero's unerring shafts and bow, had, while the Grecian fleet an- 
chored at Chryse, a small island in the JEgsean, been bitten in the foot 
by a serpent ; the pain of the wound was insufferable — the shrieks and 
groans of Philoctetes disturbed the libations and sacrifices of the Greeks. 
And Ulysses and Diomed, when the fleet proceeded, left him, while 
asleep, on the wild and rocky solitudes of Lemnos. There, till the 
tenth year of the Trojan siege, he dragged out an agonizing life. The 
soothsayer Helenus then declared that Troy could not fall till Philoc- 
tetes appeared in the Grecian camp with the arrows and bow of Hercules. 
Ulysses undertakes to effect this object, and, with Neoptolemus, the son 
of Achilles, departs for Lemnos. Here the play opens. A wild and 
desolate shore — a cavern with two mouths, to admit the sunshine in 
winter, and the breezes in summer — and a little fountain of pure water, 
designate the abode of Philoctetes. 

- In accordance with his general character, Ulysses is to gain his object 
by deceit and stratagem. Neoptolemus is to dupe him whom he has 
never seen by professions of friendship — and offers of services, and to 
snare away the consecrated weapons. Neoptolemus has all the generous 
ardor and honesty of youth ; but he has also its timid irresolution — its 



294 SOPHOCLES. [Lect. XL 

docile submission to the great — its fear of the censure of the world. He 
recoils from the base task proposed to him ; he would prefer violence to 
fraud ; yet he dreads lest, having undertaken the enterprise, his refusal 
to act should be considered treachery to his coadjutor. It is with a 
deep and melancholy wisdom that Ulysses, who seems to contemplate his 
struggles with compassionate and not displeased superiority, thus at- 
tempts to reconcile the young man : 

Son of a noble sire ! / too, in youth, 
Had thy plain speech, and thine impatient arm: 
But a stern test is time! I have lived to see 
That among men the tools of power and empire 
Are subtle words — not deeds. 

Neoptolemus is overruled, Ulysses withdraws, and Philoctetes appears. 
The delight of the lonely wretch on hearing his own language — on seeing 
the son of Achilles — his description of his feelings when he first found 
himself abandoned in the desert — his relation of the hardships he has 
since undergone, are pathetic in the extreme. He implores Neoptolemus 
to bear him away, and when the youth consents, he bursts into an excla- 
mation of joy, which, to the audience, in the secret of the perfidy to be 
practised on him, must have excited the most lively emotions. 

The characteristic excellence of Sophocles is, that in his most majestic 
creations he always contrives to introduce the sweetest touches of human- 
ity. Philoctetes will not even quit his miserable desert until he has re- 
turned to his cave to bid it farewell — to kiss the only shelter that did not 
deny a refuge to his woes. In the joy of his heart he thinks that he has 
found faith in man — in unsophisticated youth. He trusts the arrows and 
the bow to the hand of Neoptolemus. Then, as he attempts to crawl 
along, the sharp agony of his wound completely overpowers him. He 
endeavors in vain to stifle his groans : the body conquers the mind. The 
torture exhausts, till insensibility or sleep comes over him. He lies down 
to rest, and the young man watches at his side. The picture is remark- 
ably striking. Neoptolemus, at war with himself, does not seize the occa- 
sion. Philoctetes awakes : he is ready to go on board ; he urges, and 
even implores instant departure. Neoptolemus recoils — the suspicions of 
Philoctetes are awakened ; he thinks that this stranger too will abandon 
him. At length the young man, by a violent effort, speaks abruptly out, 
' Thou must sail to Troy — to the Greeks — the Atridse.' l The Greeks — 
the Atridae !' the betrayers of Philoctetes — those beyond pardon — those 
whom for ten years he has pursued with the curses of a wronged, and de- 
serted, and solitary spirit. ' Give me back,' he cried, c my bow and ar- 
rows.' And when Neoptolemus refuses, he pours forth a torrent of the 
bitterest reproach. The son of the truth-telling Achilles can withstand 
no longer. He is about to restore the weapons, when Ulysses rushes on 
the stage and prevents him. 



495A.D.] SOPHOCLES. 295 

At length the sufferer is to be left — left once more alone in the desert. 
He cannot go with his betrayers — he cannot give glory and conquest to 
his inhuman foes. In the wrath of his indignant heart even the desert is 
sweeter than the Grecian camp. And how is he to sustain himself with- 
out his shafts ? Famine adds a new horror to his dreary solitude, and 
the wild beasts may now pierce into his cavern : but their cruelty would 
be mercy ! His contradictory and tempestuous emotions, as the sailors 
that compose the chorus are about to depart, are thus told. The chorus 
entreats him to accompany them : 

Phil. Begone ! 

Ch. It is a friendly bidding — we obey— 

Come, let us go. To ship, my comrades. 

Ph. No, 

No, do not go — by the great Jove who hears 
Men's curses — do not go. 

Ch. Be calm, 

Ph. Sweet strangers ! 

In mercy leave me not. 

* * * * ***** 

* * * * * * * * * 
Ch. But now you bade us. 

Ph. Ay, meet cause for chiding, 

That a poor desperate wretch, maddened with pain, 
Should talk as madmen do! 

Ch. Come then with us. 

Ph. Never ! Oh, never ! Hear me — not if all 
The lightnings of the thunder-god were made 
Allies with you, to blast me? Perish Troy, 
And all beleaguered round its walls — yea, all 
"Who had the heart to spurn the wounded wretch; 
But, but — nay — yes — one prayer, one boon accord me ? 

Ch. What wouldst thou have? 

Ph. A sword, an axe, a something ; 

So it can strike, no matter ! 

Ch. Nay, for what? 

Ph. "What ! for this hand to hew me off this head — 
These limbs! To death, to solemn death at last 
My spirit calls me. 

Ch. Why? 

Ph. To seek my father. 

Ch. On earth? 

Ph. In Hades. 

Having thus worked us up to the utmost point of sympathy with the 
abandoned Philoctetes, the poet now gradually sheds a gentler and holier 
light over the intense gloom to which we had been led. Neoptolemus, 
touched with generous remorse, steals back to give the betrayed warrior 
his weapons — he is watched by the vigilant Ulysses — an angry altercation 
takes place between them. Ulysses, finding he cannot intimidate, pru- 



296 SOPHOCLES. [Liner. XL 

dently avoids personal encounter with the son of Achilles, and departs to 
apprize the host of the backsliding of his comrade. A most beautiful 
scene, in which Neoptolemus restores the weapons to Philoctetes — a scene 
which must have commanded the most exquisite tears and the most rap- 
turous applauses of the audience, ensues ; and finally, the god, so useful to 
the ancient poets, brings all things to a happy close. Hercules appears, 
and induces his former friend to accompany Neoptolemus to the Grecian 
camp, where his wound shall be healed. The farewell of Philoctetes to 
his cavern — to the nymph of the meadows — to the roar of the ocean, 
whose spray the south wind dashes through the rude abode — to the' Ly- 
cian stream, and the plain of Lemnos — is left to linger on the ear like a 
solemn hymn, in which the little that is mournful only heightens the ma- 
jestic sweetness of all that is musical. 

The dramatic art in the several scenes of this play has never been ex- 
celled, and rarely, elsewhere, ever equalled, even by Sophocles himself. 
The contrast of character in Ulysses and Neoptolemus has in it a reality, 
a human strength and truth, that is much more common to the modern 
than to the ancient drama. 

The ' Philoctetes' involuntarily courts a comparison with the ' Prome- 
theus' of iEschylus ; and this, it must be admitted, is a great drawback 
to our admiration of the former. Both are examples of fortitude under 
suffering — of the mind's conflict with its fate. In either play a dreary 
waste, a savage solitude constitutes the scene. But the towering sub- 
limity of the Prometheus dwarfs into littleness every image of hero or 
demigod with which we contrast it. What are the chorus of mariners, 
and the astute Ulysses, and the boyish generosity of Nepotolemus — what 
is the lonely cave on the shores of Lemnos — what the high-hearted old 
warrior, with his torturing wound and his sacred bow — what are all these 
to the vast Titan, whom the fiends chain to the rock beneath which roll 
the rivers of hell, for whom the danghters of Ocean are ministers, to 
whose primeval birth the gods of Olympus are the upstarts of a day, 
whose soul is the treasure-house of a secret which threatens the realm of 
heaven, and for whose unimaginable doom earth reels to its centre, all the 
might of divinity is put forth, and Hades itself trembles as it receives its 
indomitable and awful guest ? Yet, it is the very grandeur of JEschylus 
that must have made his poems less attractive on the stage than those of 
the humane and flexible Sophocles. No visible representation can body 
forth his thoughts — they overpower the imagination, but they do not come 
home to our household and familiar feelings. 

In the contrast between the < Philoctetes' and the c Prometheus' is con- 
densed the contrast between iEschylus and Sophocles. They are both 
poets of the highest conceivable order ; but the one seems almost above 
appeal to our affections — his tempestuous gloom appals the imagination ; 
the vivid glare of his thoughts pierces the innermost recesses of the in- 



495A.C] SOPHOCLES. 297 

tellect, "but it is only by accident that he strikes upon the heart. The 
other^ in his grandest flights, remembers that men make his audience, 
and seems to feel as if art lost the breath of its life when it aspired be- 
yond the atmosphere of human intellect and human passions. iEschylus 
is no less artful than Sophocles ; but between them there is this wide dis- 
tinction — iEschylus is artful as a dramatist to be read ; Sophocles, as a 
dramatist to be acted. If we remove the actors, the stage, and the au- 
dience, iEschylus will thrill and move us no less than Sophocles, though, 
through a more intellectual, if less passionate, medium. A poem may 
be dramatic, yet not theatrical — may have all the effects of the drama in 
perusal, but by not sufficiently enlisting the skill of the actor — nay, by 
soaring beyond the highest reach of histrionic capacities, may lose those 
effects in representation. 

Thus the very genius of iEschylus, that kindles us ■ in the closet, 
must often have militated against him on the stage. But in Sophocles 
all — even the divinities themselves — are touched with humanity; they 
are not too subtle nor too lofty to be submitted to mortal gaze. We 
feel at once that on the stage he ought to have won the prize from iEs- 
chylus; for, if we look at the plays of the latter, we shall see that 
scarcely any of his great characters could have called into sufficient exer- 
cise the powers of an actor. Prometheus on his rock, never changing 
even his position, never absent from the scene, is denied all the relief, 
the play and mobility, that a representation requires. His earthly repre- 
sentative could be but a grand reciter. 

To conclude, therefore, we may remark, that while iEschylus and So- 
phocles were both artists of the very highest order of merit — as geniuses 
always must be — yet the art of the latter adapts itself better to represen- 
tation than that of the former. And this distinction in art is not attrib- 
utable to the fact that Sophocles followed iEschylus in the order of time. 
Had iEschylus followed Sophocles it would equally have existed — it was 
the natural consequence of the distinctions in their genius — the one more 
sublime, the other more impassioned — the one exalting the imagination, 
the other touching the heart. iEschylus is the Michael Angelo of the 
drama, Sophocles, the Raphael. 



tuluxt tlu Ctndftjj. 

EURIPIDES.— NEOPHRON".— ION— ARISTARCHUS.— ACH^EUS— CARCI- 
NUS.— XENOCLES.— AGATHON.— CHJ3REMON.— THEODECTES. 

THE excellences of Euripides, the third of the three distinguished 
Grecian tragic poets, are so great, and his defects, when compared 
with iEschylus and Sophocles, so manifest, that it is difficult to deter- 
mine whether his dramas show an advance or a decline in tragic poetry. 
One thing, however, is certain — that the characteristic features of his 
writings indicate a new era in the public taste ; while an independent 
boldness of thought which pervades them, proves that he was not willing 
to be a mere imitator even of the beauties and perfections of others, or 
to belong to any particular school ; but was quite able to strike out a 

new line for himself. 

f 

In the works of iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, may be traced 
the natural law of progress in literary taste. These three eminent poets 
seem, as the leading minds of their age, succeeding each other at such 
intervals as to occupy amongst them the period of three generations, to 
be the representatives and directors of popular taste in its gradual growth 
and development. The mysterious and supernatural wonders of iEschylus 
are succeeded by the dignified and heroic, but still natural, characters of 
Sophocles ; and these, in their turn, give place to the romance of private 
every-day life, the unexaggerated picture of manners, in which the human 
heart and the affections, which influence it in its domestic relations, con- 
stitute the leading subject. A view of human nature is exhibited, which 
shocks us at first as embodying a low standard, but which is, in fact, not 
below reality. In it one of the great moving springs of action is the love 
of the sexes : it unites tenderness with weakness — the pathos of the 
tragic, with the wit of the comic poet, and is seasoned with a shrewd and 
subtle knowledge of human nature. It is not even averse to the bril- 
liant sophisms of a selfish and worldly philosophy. Such are the prin- 
cipal features of the drama of Euripides, and which distinguish it from 
that of iEschylus and Sophocles. 



300 EURIPIDES. [Lect. XII. 

iEschylus, in the language of Aristotle, elevated his characters above 
the attributes of human nature ; Sophocles represented men as they 
should be ; and Euripides, as they really are. The sublime and daring 
iEschylus resembles some strong and impregnable castle, situated on a 
rock, whose martial grandeur awes the beholder — its battlements de- 
fended by heroes in arms, and its gates proudly hung with trophies. 
Sophocles appears with splendid dignity, like some imperial palace of 
richest architecture, the symmetry of whose parts, and the chaste mag- 
nificence of the whole, delight the eye and command the approbation of 
the judgment. The pathetic and moral Euripides has the solemnity of 
a Gothic temple, whose stained windows admit a dim religious light, 
enough to show us its high embowered roof, and the monuments of the 
dead which rise in every part, impressing our minds with pity and terror 
at the uncertainty and short duration of human greatness, and with an 
awful sense of our own mortality. 

The judgment that would prefer Euripides to iEschylus and Sophocles 
may be a degenerate one, but it must be evident to every reflecting 
mind, that such is the usual progress of national literary taste, through 
its three phases of unreal mysticism, historic truth, and romantic fiction. 
The individual mind exhibits the same phenomena in the growth and 
unfolding of the imaginative powers, which are, of course, those cultivated 
by poetry. The child delights, first, in the supernatural wonders of the 
fairy tale ; next, he descends from the beings of another world, and takes- 
an interest in the her^ps, and kings, and princes, as recorded in biography 
and history ; and it requires time before he can take an interest in the 
love-scenes and every-day occurrences of a novel, or the deeper and more 
intense trials and other realities of human life. One thing is, perhaps, 
certain — that of all poets, either ancient or modern, Euripides was, 
beyond comparison, the most pathetic : — 

He steeped in. tears the piteous lines he wrote — 
The tenderest bard that e'er impassioned song. 

The birth of Euripides occurred in troubled, but glorious times. When 
the Persians invaded Greece, and poured their myriads down upon Attica, 
threatening Athens itself with immediate destruction, Themistocles, the 
Athenian leader, advised his countrymen to abandon their native city, 
and to trust to their fleet for protection. Amongst the exiles the parents 
of Euripides, Mnesarchus and Clito, left their home, and took shelter in 
the island of Salamis. In Salamis, on the river Euripus, a small stream 
flowing from the interior of the island, into the strait, Euripides was born, 
on the twenty- third of September, 480 A.C. — the same day on which the 
Persian fleet was there defeated by the fleet of the Greeks. Thus the 
three great tragic poets of Athens were brought into connection with the 



480A.C] EURIPIDES. 301 

most glorious day in her annals ; for, while Euripides then first saw the 
light, iEschylus, in the maturity of manhood, fought in the battle, and 
Sophocles, a beautiful youth in his sixteenth year, took part in the chorus 
at the festival which celebrated the victory. 

With respect to the condition in life of the parents of Euripides, va- 
rious and very contradictory statements have been made. Stobseus ob- 
serves that his father was a Boeotian, and was banished from his native 
country for bankruptcy ; and according to Aristophanes and other comic 
poets, his mother was an herb-seller of even questionable character. On 
the other hand, Suidas asserts that the family of Euripides was of rank 
far from mean ; and this assertion is sustained by what Athenseus reports 
from Theophrastus, that the poet, when a boy, was cup-bearer to a chorus 
of noble Athenians at the Thargelian festival — an office for which nobil- 
ity of blood was requisite. We know also that he was taught rhetoric by 
Prodicus, who was certainly far from moderate in his terms for instruc- 
tion, and who was in the habit, as Philostratus informs us, of seeking his 
pupils among youths of high rank. 

Mnesarchus, the father of the future poet, in accordance with a time- 
honored custom amongst the Greeks, consulted the Delphic Oracle im- 
mediately after his son's birth, in order to ascertain his destiny in life. 
To his inquiries the oracle made the following ambiguous reply : — 

Happy Mnesarchus heaven hath given a son; 
The listening world shall witness his renown 
And with glad shouts bestow the sacred crown. 

In consequence of this prediction, his father had him trained in gymnas- 
tic exercises ; and such soon became his proficiency in these exercises, 
that, while yet a boy, he won the prize at the Eleusinian and Thesean 
contests, and offered himself, when only seventeen years old, as a candi- 
date at the Olympic games, but was not admitted on account of some 
doubt about his age. Some trace of his early gymnastic pursuits has 
been noticed in the detailed description of the combat between Eteocles 
and Polynices in the Phoenissae. 

Early abandoning, however, the gymnasium, Euripides next turned his 
attention to the art of painting, in which he was equally successful ; and 
it has been observed that the veiled figure of Agamemnon in the Iphige- 
nia of Timanthes was probably suggested by a line in Euripides' de- 
scription of the same scene. To philosophy and literature he also de- 
voted himself with much energy, studying physics under Anaxagoras, and 
rhetoric, as we have already remarked, under Prodicus. We learn, also, 
from Athenaeus that he was a collector of books, and it is recorded of him 
that he committed to memory certain treatises of Heraclitus, which he 
found in the temple of Artemis, and which he was the first to introduce 



302 EURIPIDES. [Lect. XII. 

to the notice of Socrates. That he was intimate with the latter, there 
can be no doubt ; but there can be no foundation for the statement of 
Gellius, that he received instruction from him in moral science, for Eu- 
ripides was thirteen years old at the time of Socrates' birth. 

Traces of the teaching of Anaxagoras have been noticed in many pass- 
ages both of the extant plays, and of the fragments of Euripides, and were 
impressed especially on the lost tragedy of Melanippas the Wise. The 
philosopher is also supposed to be alluded to in certain lines of the Al- 
cestes. Hence, says Miiller, < We do not know what induced a person 
with such tendencies to devote himself to tragic poetry.' He is referring 
apparently to the opposition between the philosophical convictions of Eu- 
ripides and the mythical legends which formed the subjects of tragedy; 
otherwise it does not clearly appear why poetry should be thought incom- 
patible with philosophical pursuits. If, however, we may credit the ac- 
count in Gellius, it would seem — and this is not unimportant for an esti- 
mation of his poetical character — that the mind of Euripides was led, at 
a very early period, to that which afterwards became the business of his 
life, since he wrote a tragedy at the age of eighteen. That it was, there- 
fore, exhibited, and that it was probably no other than the Rhesus, are 
points unwarrantably concluded by the German critic Hartung, who 
ascribes to the same date also the composition of the Veiled Hippolytus. 

The representation of the Peliades, the first play of Euripides that was 
acted, at least in his own name, took place 455 A.C., when the author 
was in the twenty-fifth year of his age. In 441 A.C. he gained, for the 
first time, the first prize ; and he continued to exhibit plays regularly, 
until 408 A.C, the date of the Orestes, receiving, during the period of 
thirty-three years, the first prize on fifteen occasions. This, when we re- 
member that Sophocles was one of his constant competitors, must be ac- 
knowledged to have been a very large number of triumphs. 

Notwithstanding Euripides' dramatic success, he was far from being 
happy in Athens. The constant and virulent attacks of Aristophanes and 
other comic poets upon his character and principles, finally raised a strong, 
violent, and unscrupulous party against him ; and he, therefore, soon after 
the representation of c Orestes,' left his native city, and retired to the 
court of Archelaus, King of Macedonia, where he was received with every 
mark of honor and distinction. Archelaus at once raised him to the 
most exalted position at his court — making him first, one of his counsel- 
lors of State, and afterwards his prime minister. Euripides did not, 
however, long live to enjoy his new dignities ; for two poets at the court 
of Archelaus, Arrhidseus and Cratenas, becoming envious of his position 
and influence, let the king's furious hounds loose upon him while he was 
leisurely strolling through one of the royal parks, and by them the old 



480A.C] EURIPIDES. 303 

poet was immediately torn to pieces. This sad event occurred 406 A.C., 
and when Euripides was in the seventy- sixth year of his age. 

"When the intelligence of Euripides' death reached Athens, the deepest 
gloom spread throughout the whole city. The magistrates ordered that 
every citizen, without distinction of rank, should wear the usual badge 
of mourning for thirty-eight days, and a deputation should be sent to the 
king of Macedonia, requesting the delivering up of his remains for public 
burial. This request Archelaus declined, but caused the burial to be 
performed at Pella, his capital, with the most magnificent solemnity. 
Even Sophocles, the strenuous and inveterate rival of Euripides, was so 
sensible of the extraordinary merits of the latter, and so deeply regretted 
his death, that at the representation of his next play he directed his 
actors to appear uncrowned. 

Nor was the reputation of Euripides confined to the Athenians, who, 
immediately after his death, according to Pausanias, erected a magnifi- 
cent statue to his memory ; but even the distant Sicilians and Cumaeans 
could appreciate and even feel, the power of his numbers. The former, 
after the disastrous termination of the Athenian expedition against 
Syracuse, released and permitted to return to their native country, all 
those persons who could repeat any of his verses ; and the latter, on one 
occasion, having at first refused to admit into their harbor an Athenian 
ship pursued by pirates, allowed it to enter as soon as they found that 
some of the crew could repeat fragments of his poems. The following 
elegant epigram to his memory, by an anonymous author, is preserved in 
one of the Greek Anthologies : — 

Divine Euripides, this tomb we see 

So fair, is not a monument for thee, 

So much as thou for it ; since all will own, 

Thy name and lasting praise adorn the stone. 

Such was the life of Euripides ; and although, during the greater part 
of his career the contemporary of Sophocles, he belongs to a new genera- 
tion, and represents a new phase of the Athenian mind. The age in 
which he flourished was an age of philosophy rather than of poetry. The 
warmth of genius was now succeeded by the cold calculations and inge- 
nius subtleties of speculative criticism ; and Euripides, whether his was 
a master mind that led the public taste, or his plays merely an indication 
of what was the state of the Athenian mind, evidently delighted in the 
nice distinctions of a sophistical philosophy in brilliant and sharp an- 
titheses, startling paradoxes, hair-splitting arguments, a dexterous use of 
language, like that of the Athenian lawcourts, and an affectation of 
pedantic ornament. 

But the greatest innovation which Euripides made upon the estab- 
lished usages of the tragic art, was entirely of a philosophical nature ; 
and though they may be objectionable, they certainly show him to have 



304 EURIPIDES. [Lect. XII. 

been a man of independent thought and fearless courage. It is said that 
on one occasion, during the representation of one of his tragedies, the 
audience clamorously demanded that a sentiment which it contained 
should be expunged ; but the poet came forward, and boldly told them 
that he came there to instruct, and not to be instructed. His philosoph- 
ical mind saw .the untruthful aspect under which sentiment as well as 
characters had been presented to theatrical audiences ; and he therefore 
resolved to curb his genius, and confine himself to the results of his ob- 
servation and experience. This is the reason for the common-place, un- 
romantic view which Euripides takes of human nature. He does not 
transport himself into the world of ideal heroism, but brings down gods 
and heroes to a level with Athenian citizens, with the very auditory that 
fills the theatre, and witnesses the dramas which he represents. 

In the tragedies of Euripides there is more truth and less poetry, than 
in those of either iEschylus or Sophocles. They probably present a 
fair and just picture of Athenian life and manners, and modes of think- 
ing. Euripides did not transgress the custom of deriving his plots from 
the usual heroic and mythical sources, but his heroes were no longer the 
same, except in name, with those of iEschylus and Sophocles ; they ar- 
gued, disputed, and conversed like Athenian citizens, who had received 
their theoretical education in the schools of the philosophers, and the 
practical training in the law courts and the ecclesia. His dramas were 
unnatural, inasmuch as they did violence to the traditional belief, with 
which the Athenian mind was imbued, and represented characters, with 
which they had been familiar from time immemorial, in a different moral 
garb to that which they had hitherto worn. They were natural, inas- 
much as they represented men and women, such as were to be met with 
in the intercourse of daily life, and the places of public resort at Athens. 

The peculiar feature in the structure of the tragedies of Euripides, is the 
regular prologue with which he opens each play. This feature, although 
not unusual, was not an essential portion of the Athenian drama ; in 
fact iEschylus has prefixed prologues to but few of his plays, and Sopho- 
cles to none. Euripides, on the other hand, has made use of prologues 
in all cases, and evidently piqued himself on his skill in their composi- 
tion. The principal objection brought against the prologue is, that it 
not only made the audience acquainted with all that it was necessary 
for them to know previous to the time when the action is supposed to 
commence, but also anticipated the events, and, therefore, the interest 
of the play. This was, doubtless, in some instances, the case ; as, for 
example, in the ' Hecuba,' the ' Ion,' and the ' Troades.' But it must 
be remembered, that, owing to the well-known sources from which tragic 
plots were derived, this was not so great an evil as we should at first 
imagine. Athenian audiences could witness with the greatest delight, the 



480A.D.] EURIPIDES. 305 

representation of a play, the plot of which was almost the same as those 
of many former tragedies, and which was founded on incidents with which 
they had been familiar from childhood. This does not, however, appear 
to have been the objection which struck the mind of the principal Athe- 
nian critics. It is far more probable that the reasons which rendered 
them offensive to Athenian taste were — first, that it was an unartistic 
and clumsily-contrived method of bringing about the catastrophe, which 
ought, according to all the rules and precedents of classic art, to have 
been effected by the regular and natural action of the play itself; and 
secondly, that the constant and uniform indulgence in this habit struck 
the nice and discriminating taste of an Athenian audience as stupid and 
monotonous; their fickle and volatile nature looked for variety and novelty 
of construction, and they could not expect much novelty of plot. 

Euripides' plays are, strictly speaking, plays of the passions, and 
from a dramatist whose great art lay in exciting the softer emotions 
we naturally look for great sweetness and beauty in his lyrical poetry. 
Nor are we disappointed ; for his choral odes and lyric pieces are the 
most tender, and, at the same time, the sweetest of his compositions; 
and his monodies, or solo passages, are absolutely unrivalled. Illustra- 
tive of these remarks we need only introduce the specimens which follow. 
The first is from the Cyclops — a most interesting and important relic 
of antiquity, as, in it, we have the only example of the satirical drama 
that has been handed down to modern times. Inferior as Euripides is 
to JEschylus and Sophocles in art and taste, he has, in this case, been 
happy in the choice of a subject singularly suited to the purpose, anH 
has adorned it with all the graces of elegant simplicity. The following 
passage, besides its beauty, is a pleasing specimen of the poetry which so 
frequently adorned the ancient satiric drama : 

In yon trench, by yonder cave, 
Slake your thirst, your fleeces lave ; 
Or if ye must wander still, 
Seek at least the dewy hill: 
Must a pebble bring you back, 
Flung across your wilful track ; 
Hie thee horned one, back again 
To the shepherd Cyclops' den; 
See, the porter stands before 
His rustic master's rocky door : 
Mothers, hear your sucklings bleating, 
For their evening meal entreating; 
Penned, the live-long day they lie, 
Now give them food and lullaby. 
"Will ye never, never learn 
From the grassy mead to turn; 
Never rest, when day grows dim, 
In ./Etna's grot, each weary limb. 
20 



306 EURIPIDES. [Leot. XII. 

To the passage from the * Cyclops,' we add the following extracts from 
Euripides' choruses : 



FROM A CHORUS IN THE HECUBA. 

The fatal hour was midnight's calm, 

"When the feast was done, and sleep like balm 

Was shed on every eye. 
Hush'd was the chorus symphony, 

The sacrifice was o'er. 
My lord to rest his limbs had flung, 
His idle spear in its place was hung, 

He dreamed of foes no more. 
And I, while I lost my lifeless gaze, 
In the depth of the golden mirror's blaze ; 

That my last light task was aiding, 
"Was wreathing with fillets my tresses' maize, 

And with playful fingers braiding. 
Then came a shout; 

Through the noiseless city the cry rang out, 
' Your homes are won, if ye scale the tower, 
Sons of the Greeks ! is it not the hour V 



FROM THE CHORUS IN THE ALCESTIS. 

We will not look on her burial sod, 

As the cell of sepulchral sleep : 
It shall be as the shrine of a radiant god, 
And the pilgrim shall visit that blest abode, 

To worship and not to weep. 
And as he turns his steps aside, 

Thus shall he breath his vow — 
Here slept a self-devoted bride; 
Of old, to save her lord she died, 

She is a spirit how. 

The tragedies and other plays of Euripides still extant are more 
numerous, and embrace almost as much dramatic poetry, as the remains 
of all the other Grecian dramatic writers combined. This circumstance 
plainly indicates the extent of their popularity amongst his countrymen, 
and the care and anxiety with which they were preserved by his succes- 
sors. The following is the order, as nearly as we can now ascertain, in 
which they were produced : 

Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, Hecuba, Heraclidce, Supplices, Ion, 
Hercules Furens, Andromaclie, Iphigenia at Tauris, Troades, Electra, 
Helena, Iphigenia at Aulis, Bacchcc, Phoznissce, Cyclops, Orestes. 



480A.-O.] EURIPIDES. 307 

The ' Alcestis ' is one of the most inferior of Euripides' dramas. It 
is a sort of tragi-comedy, and appears to have been acted as the last of 
four poems, instead of a satyric drama, to afford relief to the audience, 
after witnessing a triology of tragedies. The incidents of the play suffi- 
ciently indicate its dramatic character. Admetus, the hero, allows his 
wife to die for him, and reproaches his father for not having been willing 
to make the same sacrifice ; and when Hercules restores Alcestis to life, 
Admetus, the sorrowing widower, fears to receive her back from the em- 
braces of death, lest he should be charged with incontinence. Defective 
as this play is, however, it doubtless perfectly fulfilled its destination, 
which was, to furnish a cheerful conclusion to a series of real tragedies, 
and thus relieve the mind from the stress of tragic feeling which they 
had occasioned. The song of the chorus, following the death of Alcestis, 
is in one of Euripides peculiarly happy strains : 

Ch. Daughter of Pelias ! now farewell ! 
Since thou must forever dwell 
In the subterranean - halls 
Where the sun's light never falls. 
Let the god, whose tresses flow 
With a glooming blackness, know, 
And the Rower, old and dread, 
Ferryman of all the dead. 
That this woman is the best, 
Of the rarest worth possest, 
It was e'er his lot to take 
O'er the Acherontian lake. 

Thy praise shall minstrels often tell 
On the seven-toned mountain shell, 
And in solemn hymns and sweet 
Oft without the lyre repeat, 
Both in Sparta, when they keep 
The Carnean feast, nor sleep, 
While the' vernal moon all night 
Shineth on them glad and bright — 
And in Athens, famed in story, 
Rich in splendor, wealth, and glory, 
Such a theme thy death supplies 
For the minstrel's melodies. 

Would that it did on me depend 
That thou shouldst to the light ascend I 
From the realm of Dis supreme, 
Where Cocytus rolls his stream, 
From the land of shadows black 
Would that I could waft thee back, 
Bring thee up to earth again 
By the river subterane ! 
Thou, of women, thou alone, 
For thy husband's life thine own 



308 EURIPID*ES. [Leot. XII. 

Didst to Hades freely give, 
Dying that thy spouse might live. 
Lightly lie the earth o'er thee! 
If with other ever he 
Link in love, his children's hate 
And our scorn upon him wait. 

His mother was not willing found, 
To hide her body under ground, 
"Was not willing though she bore him, 
To the grave to go before him ; - 
Nor did his old father dare, 
"When they both had hoary hair, 
Neither of them dared to go, 
As his substitute below. 
But thou didst — and in the hour 
Of thy youth's fresh-breathing flower, 
Ere life's loveliest hues had fled, 
Dying in thy husband's stead. 

The c Medea' is a great and impressive picture of human passion, and 
may be regarded as a perfect model of the tragedies of Euripides. In 
this play the poet takes on himself the risk, and, in those days it was cer- 
tainly no slight one, of representing, in all her fearfulness, a divorced 
and slighted wife : he has done this in the character of Medea, with such 
vigor, that all our feelings are enlisted on the side of the incensed wife, 
and we follow with the most eager sympathy, her crafty plan for obtaining, 
by dissimulation, time and opportunity for the destruction of all that is 
dear to the faithless Jason ; and, though we cannot regard the catastro- 
phe without horror, we even consider the murder of her children as a 
deed necessary under the circumstances. The exasperation of Medea 
against her husband, and those who have deprived her of his love, cer- 
tainly contains nothing grand ; but the irresistible strength of this feel- 
ing, and the resolution with which she casts aside all her own interests, 
and even rages against her own heart, produces a really great and tragic 
effect. The scene, which paints the struggle in Medea's breast between 
her plans of revenge and her love for her children, will always be re- 
garded as one of the most touching and impressive scenes ever repre- 
sented on the stage. It was such scenes as this that induced Aristotle to 
pronounce Euripides the most tragic of the poets. The story upon which 
this tragedy is founded is briefly as follows : 

Medea, the daughter of iEetes, king of Colchis, becoming enamored 
of Jason, the leader in the Argonautic expedition, extricates him, 
through her magical art, out of all his dangers, and then facilitates his 
acquisition of the celebrated golden fleece. Jason, through pretended 
gratitude, marries her, and they flee to Corinth. Here, unmindful of his 
obligations, he resolves to divorce his wife, and marry G-lauce, the daugh- 



480 AC.] EURIPIDES. 309 

ter of King Creon. Creon, fearing the cruelty and power of Medea, ban- 
ishes her and her two sons from the kingdom, in order to secure his 
daughter from her revenge. The unhappy Medea, driven by this insult, 
pretends to submit to the sentence ; and having secured an asylum for 
herself at Athens, sends her sons with rich presents to the bride ; and by 
the interposition of Jason, succeeds in obtaining her good offices with the 
king, to permit the youths to remain at Corinth, under the protection of 
their father. The youths are sent back to their mother, and G-lauce 
hastens to array herself in the splendid robes presented by her rival ; but 
she soon finds that the enchantress has infused a deadly poison, which 
proves fatal both to herself and to her father. Jason, apprehensive of 
the fate that may await his sons, hastens to their rescue ; but he finds, on 
his arrival, that Medea has already sacrificed them as an expiation of the 
infidelity of her husband, whose agony she derides ; and, defying his 
resentment, flies through the air with her slaughtered children, in a chariot 
drawn by winged dragons. 

From this impressive and deeply-interesting tragedy, we select the fol- 
lowing scene : 

NURSE OF MEDEA. 

0, that the gallant Argo had not wing'd 

Her course to Colchis, through the clashing rocks 

Of the black Euxine; that in Pelion's groves 

The pine had ne'er been fell'd, nor at the oars 

The heroes' hands had labor'd when they sought 

The golden fleece for Pelias: then my queen, 

Medea, had not plough'd the watery way 

To tower'd Iolcos, maddening with the love 

Of Jason; nor, the daughters won to slay 

Their father Pelias, had she fixed her seat 

At Corinth, with her husband and her sons; 

A pleasing flight indeed to those, whose land 

She made her residence : while every thought, 

Studious to aid him, was on Jason fix'd. 

This is the state of firmest happiness, 

When from the husband no discordant will 

The wife estranges ; but their dearest ties 

Of love are loosen'd ; all is variance now 

And hate : for Jason, to his children false, 

False to my mistress, for & royal bride 

Hath left her couch, and wedded Creon's daughter, 

Lord of this land. Ill doth Medea brook 

This base dishonor ; on his oath she calls, 

Recalls their plighted hands, the firmest pledge 

Of mutual faith, and calls the gods to witness 

"What a requital she from Jason finds. 

Of food regardless, and in sorrow sunk 

She lies, and melts in tears each tedious horn* 

Since first she knew her lord had injured her; 



310 EURIPIDES. [Lect.XIL 

Nor lifts her eye, nor lifts her face from the earth, 

Deaf to her friends' entreaties as a rock, 

Or billow of the sea; save when she turns 

Her snowy neck, and to herself bewails 

Her father, and her country, and her house, 

Which she betray'd to follow this base man, 

Who treats her now with such indignity. 

Affliction now hath taught her what it is 

Not to forsake a parent and his house. 

She hates her children, nor with pleasure sees them. 

I fear her lest she form some strange design ; 

For violent her temper, and of wrongs 

Impatient : well I know her, and I fear her, 

Lest, in the dead of night, when all are laid 

In deep repose, she steal into the house, 

And plunge into their breast the piercing sword ; 

Or murder ev'n the monarch of the land, 

Or the new-married Jason, on herself 

Drawing severer ills : for like a storm 

Her passions swell: and he that dares enrage her 

Will have small cause to boast his victory. 

But see her sons from the gymnastic ring 

Returning, heedless of their mother's ills ; 

For youth holds no society with grief. 

Tutor, with the sons of Medea — Nurse. 

Tut. Thou old domestic servant of my mistress, 
Why dost thou take thy station at the gates, 
And ruminate in silence on thy griefs ? 
How hath Medea wish'd to be alone ? 

Nur. Thou good old man, attendant on the sons 
Of Jason, faithful servants with their lords 
Suffer in their afflictions, and their hearts 
Are touch'd with social sorrow ; and my griefs 
Swell, for Medea's sufferings, to such height, 
That strong desire impell'd me to come forth, 
And tell them to the earth and to the skies. 

Tut. Admits she yet no respite to her groans ? 

Nur. I wonder at thee : no, these ills but now 
Are rising, to their height not yet advanced. 

Tut. Unwise, if of our lords we so may speak ; 
Since she knows nothing of more recent ills. 

Nxir. What may this be ? Refuse not to inform me. 

Tut. Nothing; and I repent of what I said. 

Nur. Nay, by thy beard, conceal it not from me, 
Thy fellow-servant : if occasion calls 
For secrecy, in silence will I keep it. 

Tut. I heard one say, not seeming to attend, 
But passing on to where they play with dice, 
Among the grave old men, who then by chance 
Were sitting near Pirene's hallow'd stream, 
That Creon, lord of this fair land, will drive 



480A.C] EURIPIDES. 311 

These children and their mother from the state 
Of Corinth : whether this report be true 
I know not, but I wish it otherwise. 

Nur. Will Jason bear to see his sons thus wrong'd, 
Though he regards their mother now no more? 

Tut. To new alliances the old gives place, 
And to the house he is no more a friend. 

Nur. Ruin would follow to the former ill 
If this were added ere the first subsides. 

Tut. Be cautious then ; it were unseasonable 
Our queen knew this ; in silence close thy lips. 

Nur. You hear, my children, how your father's mind 
Is towards you : yet I wish not ruin on him ; 
He is my lord, though to his friends unkind. 

Tut. What mortal knows not — thou mayst know it hence — 
Each for himself conceives a dearer love 
Than for his neighbor ; some by glory, some 
By gain induced : what wonder, then, if these, 
Of his new nuptials fond, their father love not ? 

Nur. Go in, my children, go : all will be well ; 
And take thou heed, keep them aloof, nor let them 
Come near their mother while her griefs are fresh: 
Cruel her eye, and wild ; I mark'd it late, 
Expressive of some dark design on these : 
Nor will she check her fury, well I know, 
Till the storm bursts on some one : may its stroke 
Fall on some hostile head, not on a friend. 

Med. Wretch that I am, what anguish rends my heart ! 
Wretched Medea, how art thou undone! [Within. 

Nur. Ay, thus it is. Your mother, my dear children, 
Swells with resentment, swells with rage : go in, 
Go quickly in; but come not in her eye, 
Approach her not, but keep you from the wild 
And dreadful fury of her violent temper. 
Go now, go quickly in; this rising cloud 
Of grief forebodes a storm, which soon will fall 
With greater rage: inflamed with injuries, 
What will not her tempestuous spirit dare ? 

Med. Ah me ! ah me ! what mighty wrongs I bear, 
Wrongs that demand my tears and loud laments! 
Ye sons accursed of a detested mother, 
Perish, together with your father perish, 
And in one general ruin sink your house 1 

Nur. Ah me unhappy ! in their father's fault 
Why make thy sons associates ? Why on them 
Rises thy hatred? 0, I fear, I fear, 
My children, lest some evil threatens you. 
Kings have a fiery quality of soul, 
Accustom'd to command ; if once they feel 
Control, though small, their anger blazes out, 
Not easily extinguish'd ; hence I deem 
An equal mediocrity of life 



312 EURIPIDES. [Lect. XIL 

More to be wish'd ; if not in gorgeous state, 
Yet without danger glides it on to age. 
There's a protection in its very name, 
And happiness dwells with it : but the height 
Of towering greatness long to mortal man 
Remains not fix'd; and when misfortune comes 
Enraged, in deeper ruin sinks the house. . 



Nurse. — Chorus. 

Ch. I heard the voice, I heard the loud laments 
Of the unhappy Colchian : do her griefs 
(Say, reverend matron,) find no respite yet ? 
From the door's opening valve I heard her voice. 
No pleasure in the sorrows of your house 
I take ; for deeds are done not grateful to me. 

Nur. This is no more a house ; all here is vanish' d, 
Nor leaves a trace behind. The monarch's house 
He makes his own ; while my unhappy mistress 
In her lone chamber melts her life away 
In tears, unmoved by all the arguments 
Urged by her friends to soothe her sorrowing soul. 

Med. that the ethereal lightning on this head 
"Would fall ! Why longer should I wish to live ? 
Unhappy me ! Death would be welcome now, 
And kindly free me from this hated life. 

Ch. Dost thou hear this, Jove,- Earth, Light, 
The mournful voice of this unhappy, dame? 
"Why thus indulge this unabated force 
Of nuptial love, self-rigorous, hastening death ? 
Let it not be thy wish: if a new bed 
Now charms thy husband, be not his offence 
^Engraved too deep : Jove will avenge thy wrongs ; 
Let not thy sorrows prey upon thy heart. 

Med. powerful Themis, revered Diana, 
See what I suffer, though with sacred oaths 
This vile, accursed husband I had bound ! 
0, might I one day see him and his bride 
Rent piecemeal in their house, who unprovoked 
Have dared to wrong me thus ! Alas, my father ! 
Alas, my country ! whom my shameful flight 
Abandon'd, having first my brother slain 1 

Nur. You hear her invocations, how she calls 
On Themis, prompt to hear the suppliant's vows ; 
And Jove, the avenger of neglected oaths 
To mortal man : nor is it possible 
Her fiery transports know a moment's pause. 

Ch. What motives can be urged to draw her forth ? 
Could we but see her, would she hear our voice, 
Haply our pleaded reason might avail 
To sopthe her soul, and mitigate her rage. 
My zeal shall not be wanting to my friends. 



480A.C.] EURIPIDES. 313 

Go then, persuade her forth; with soft address 
Allure her hither. Haste, thou friendly dame, 
Ere her resentment burst on those within. 
For her full grief swells to a dreadful height. 

Nur. I will attempt it, though I fear my voice 
Will not prevail: yet does your friendly zeal 
Claim from me this return : but to her slaves, 
When they approach to speak to her, she bears 
The aspect of a furious lioness, 
That watches o'er her young. If thou shouldst say 
That men of former times were unadvised, 
Shallow, and nothing wise, thou wouldst not err ; 
For festivals, for banquets, and for suppers, 
They form'd the sprightly song that charm'd the ear, 
Making life cheerful ; but with music's power, 
And the sweet symphony of varied strains, 
They knew not to assuage the piercing griefs 
That rack the heart, whence deaths and ruthless deeds 
Spread desolation: here to soothe the soul 
With lenient song, were wisdom. Where the feast 
Is spread why raise the tuneful voice in vain ? 
The table richly-piled hath in itself 
A cheerfulness that wakes the heart to joy. 

Ch. I heard her lamentations mixed with groans, 
Which in the anguish of her heart she vents ; 
And on her faithless husband, who betray'd 
Her bed, she calls aloud ; upon the gods, 
Thus basely wrong'd, she calls, attesting Themis, 
Daughter of Jove, the arbitress of oaths, 
Who led her to the shores of Greece, across 
The rolling ocean, when the shades of night 
Darken'd its waves, and steer'd her through the straits. 



The i Hippolytus,' though far inferior to the Medea in unity of plan 
and harmony of action, is, in several points, closely related to it. The 
unconquerable love of Phaedra for her step-son, which, when scorned, is 
turned into a desire to make him share her own ruin, is a passion of much 
the same kind as that of Medea. The passion of Phaedra, however, is 
not so completely the main subject of the whole play as that of Medea : 
the principal character, from the beginning to the end, is the young Hip- 
polytus, the model of continence, the companion and friend of the chaste 
Artemis, whom Euripides, in consequence of his tendency to attribute to 
the past the customs of his own age, has made an adherent of the ascetic 
doctrines of the Orphic school. The destruction of this youth, through 
the anger of Aphrodite, whom he has despised, is the general subject of 
the play — the proper action of the piece ; and the love of Phaedra is, in 
reference to this action, only a lever set in motion by the goddess hostile 
to Hippolytus. As this plot turns entirely upon the selfish and cruel 
hatred of a deity, it can afford but little satisfaction ; but still those 



314 EURIPIDES. [Lect. XII. 

passages that represent Phaedra's passion are extremely beautiful. From 
one of these we select the following : 



PHAEDRA.— CHORUS. 

STROPHE I. 

Love, Love, that through the eyes 

Instillest softly 'warm desire, 
Pleased in the soul, with sweet surprise, 

Entrancing rapture to inspire; 
Never with wild ungovern'd sway 
Rush on my heart, and force it to obey: 

For not the lightning's fire, 
Nor stars swift darting through the sky, 
Equal the shafts sent by this son of Jove, 
When his hand gives them force to fly, 

Kindling the flames of love, 

ANTISTROPHE I. 
In vain at Alpheus' stream, in vain 

At bright Apollo's Pythian shrine. 
Doth Greece, the votive victim slain, 

"With reverence offer rites divine: 
To him who holds the high employ 
To unlock the golden gates of love and joy, 

No honors we assign; 
The tyrant of the human breast, 
That ravages where'er he takes his way, 
And sinks mankind with woes oppress'd 

Beneath his ruthless sway. 

STROPHE H. 

Thee, (Echalia's blooming pride, 

Virgin yet in love untried: 

Ne'er before by Hymen led, 

Stranger to the nuptial bed. 

Inexperienced, hapless fair, 

From thy house with wild affright 

Hastening, like the frantic dame, 
That to the Bacchic orgies speeds her flight, 

With blood, with smoke, with flame, 

And all the terrors wild of war, 
To liupfcials stain'd with gore did Venus give, 
And bads Alcmena's son the beauteous prize receive. 

ANTISTROPHE H. 
Say, ye sacred towers that stand 
Bulwarks of the Theban land ; 
And ye streams, that welling play, 
From the fount of Dirce, say, 
How to you came the Queen of Love : 



480A.C] EURIPIDES. 315 

'Mid the lightning's rapid fire, 

While around her thunders roar, 
She caused the blasted Semele to expire, 

The hapless nymphs that bore' 

Bacchus from the embrace of Jove. 
Thus over all she spreads her tyrant power, 
As restless as the bee that roves from flower to flower. 



The { Hecuba' is another of those tragedies of Euripides in which the 
emotions of passion, or pathos, in the Greek sense of the word, is set 
forth in all its might and energy. This play has generally been regarded 
as deficient in unity of action ; hut if we regard Hecuba as the leading 
character of the piece, and refer all the minor incidents directly to her, 
the whole action will be brought to an harmonious close. Hecuba, the 
afflicted queen and mother, learns at the very beginning of the piece a 
new sorrow ; for it is announced to her that the Greeks demand the sac- 
rifice of her daughter, Polyxena, at the tomb of Achilles. The daughter 
is, with this object in view, torn from her mother's arms ; and it is in the 
willing resignation and noble resolution with which the young maiden 
meets her fate, that we have any alleviation of the pain which we feel in 
common with Hecuba. The sacrifice being over, the female servant, who 
was sent to fetch water to bathe the dead body of Polyxena, discovers, on 
the sea-shore, the corpse of Polydorus, the only remaining hope of his mo- 
ther Hecuba's declining age. Polydorus had been murdered by his guar- 
dian, Polymnestor, King of Thrace; and the revolution of the piece turns 
upon this — that Hecuba, though now cast down into the lowest abyss of 
misery, no longer gives way to fruitless wailing ; but a weak, aged wo- 
man, a captive, and deprived of all help, still she finds means in her own 
powerful and active mind, to take fearful vengeance on the perfidious 
and cruel murderer of her son. With all the craft of a woman, and by 
sagaciously availing herself of the weak as well as the good side of Aga- 
memnon's character, she is enabled, not merely to entice the barbarian to 
the destruction prepared for him, but also to make an honorable defence 
of her deed before the leader of the Grecian hosts. The following pas- 
sage is a fair indication of the general poetic character of this tragedy : 

HECUBA.— CHORUS. 

CHORUS. 

Tell me, ye gales, ye rising gales, 
That lightly sweep along the azure plain, 

"Whose soft breath fills the swelling sails, 
And wafts the vessel dancing o'er the main, 

Whither, ah! whither will ye bear 

This sick'ning daughter of despair ? 



316 EURIPIDES. [Lect.XIL 

What proud lord's rigor shall the slave deplore 
On Doric, or on Pythian shore ! 

Where the rich father of translucent floods, 
Apidanus, pours his headlong waves, 

Through sunny plains, through darksome woods, 
And with his copious stream the fertile valley laves? 

Or shall the wave-impelling oar 
Bear to the hallow'd isle my frantic woes, 

Beneath whose base the billows roar, 
And my hard house of bondage round enclose ? 

Where the new palm, and laurel where 

Shoot their first branches to the air, 
Spread their green honors o'er Latona's head, 

And interweave their sacred shade. 
There, 'midst the Delian nymphs awake the lyre, 

To the Diau sound the solemn strain, 
Her tresses bound in golden wire, 

Queen of the silver bow, and goddess of the plain. 

Or where the Athenian towers arise, 
Shall these hands weave the woof, whose radiant glow 

Rivals the flow'r — impurpled dies 
That in the bosom of the young spring blow: 

Alas, my children ! battle-slain ! 
Alas, my parents ! Let me drop a tear, 

And raise the mournful, plaintive strain, 
Your loss lamenting and misfortune drear. 

Thee, chief, imperial Troy, thy State 

I mourn deserted, desolate; 
Thy walls, thy bulwarks smoking on the ground, 
The sword of Greece triumphant round, 

I, far from Asia, in the wide sea borne, 
In some strange land am called a slave, 

Outcast to insolence and scorn, 
And for my nuptial bed find a detested grave. 

The interest of the ' Heraclidse' is entirely confined to its political al- 
lusions. The play narrates, with much circumstantial detail and exact- 
ness, the manner in which the Heraclidse, as poor persecuted fugitives, 
find protection in Athens, and that by the valor of their own and the 
Athenian heroes they gain the victory over their oppressor, Eurystheus. 
It does not, however, create much tragic interest. 

The c Supplicants' has a very close affinity to the Heraclidse. In this 
play a great political action is represented with circumstantial detail, and 
with an ostentatious display of patriotic speeches and stories. The whole 
action turns upon the interment of the fallen Argive heroes, which was re- 
fused by the Thebans, but brought about by Theseus. It is highly proba- 
ble that the poet had in view the dispute between the Athenians and 
Boeotians after the battle of Delium, on which occasion the latter refused 
to give up the dead bodies for sepulture. The piece has, however, be- 



480A.C.] EURIPIDES. 317 

sides this political bearing, some independent beauties, especially in the 
songs of the chorus, which is composed of the mothers of the seven heroes 
and their attendants ; to which are added, later in the piece, seven 
youths, the sons of the fallen warriors. 

The £ Ion' possesses very great beauties. It is true that no emi- 
nent character, no violent passion, predominates in the play. The only 
motive by which the different personages in it are actuated is a considera- 
tion of their own advantage. All the interest lies in the ingenuity of 
the plot, which is so involved that, while on the one hand it keeps our 
expectation on the stretch, and agreeably surprises us, on the other, the 
result is highly flattering to the patriotic wishes of the Athenians. 
Apollo is desirous of advancing Ion, his son by Creusa, the daughter of 
Erectheus, to the sovereignty of Athens, but without acknowledging that 
he is his father. The general object of the play is manifestly to main- 
tain undimmed and undiminished the pride of the Athenians in their pure 
descent from their old earth-born patriarchs and national kings. 

The c Raging Hercules,' the ( Andromache,' the ' Iphigenia at Tauris,' 
and the l Trojan Women,' do not require particular analysis. They were 
all written at an advanced period of the poet's life, and bear evident 
marks of the influence of age upon his mind. Still, though deficient in 
unity of design and dramatic effect, yet they abound with isolated beau- 
ties peculiar to their author. To the ' Helena,' the ' Bacchae,' and the 
1 Phoenician Women,' the same remarks are applicable. 

The c Iphigenia at Aulis,' the ' Electra' and the ' Orestes,' close the list 
of Euripides' tragedies. 

The l Iphigenia at Aulis' has evidently come down to us in an imper- 
fect state. In its really genuine and original parts, it is one of the most 
admirable of the poet's tragedies ; and it is based on such a noble idea 
that we might put it on the same footing with the works of his better 
days, such as the Medea and Hecuba. This idea is, that a pure and ele- 
vated mind, like that of Iphigenia, can alone find a way out of all the in- 
tricacies and entanglements caused by the passions and the efforts of 
powerful, wise, and brave men, contending with, and running counter to, 
one another. In this play Euripides has had the skill to invest the sub- 
ject with such intense interest, by depicting the fruitless efforts of Aga- 
memnon to save his child, the too late compunction of Menelaus, the 
pride and courage with which Achilles offers himself for the rescue of his 
aflianced bride, and for her defence against the whole army, that the wil- 
lingness to sacrifice herself appears as the solution of a very complicated 
knot, such as requires a deus ex machina in Euripides, and shines with 
the brightest lustre as an act of the highest sublimity. This admirable 
work is, however, unfortunately disfigured by the interpolation of a mini- 



318 EURIPIDES. [Lect XII. 

• 
ber of passages, poor and paltry both in matter and form. These addi- 
tions were probably made by the younger Euripides, who brought the 
play on the stage after his father's death. 

In the ' Electra,' Euripides goes farther than in any other of his plays, 
in his efforts to reduce the old mythical stories to the level of every-day 
life. He has invented an incident not altogether improbable — that 
JEgisthus married Electra to a common countryman, in order that her 
children might never gain power or influence enough to endanger his life 
— and this enables the poet to put together a set of scenes, representing 
domestic arrangements of the most limited and trifling kind, and on which 
most of the incidents of the play turn. In the concluding scene, how- 
ever, he intimates an alteration in the story of Helen, and introduces 
Menelaus' sister, Theonoe, a virgin priestess, skilled in the future, but 
full of sympathy for the troubles of mankind, and presiding, like a pro- 
tecting goddess, over the plans of Helen and her husband. This is one 
of the greatest and, at the same time, most beautiful conceptions of the 
poet. 

In the ' Orestes ' the hero is represented as pursued by the Furies, 
in punishment for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra. Tradition 
remarks that this piece produced a powerful effect upon the stage, though 
all the characters in it are bad, with the exception of Pylades. The fol- 
lowing scene in which Electra is watching over her sleeping brother, and 
the Chorus approaching his couch, is strikingly effective : — 

Elect. Softly ! softly, ! fall the sound 
Of thy footsteps on the ground ! 
Gently ! gently ! like the breath 
Of a lute-song in its death ; 
Like the sighing of a reed, 
Faintly murmuring to be freed, 
So softly let thy whispers flow. 

Ch. Like a reed, as soft and low ! 

Elect. Aye, low, low ! but tell me why. 

Damsels, ye are lingering by ? 
Long hath sorrow torn his breast ; 
Now his weary eyes have rest. 

Ch. How fares it with him ? Dearest, say. 

Elect. Sad and tearful is my lay. 
Breathing on his couch he lieth, 
Still he suffereth, still he sigheth. 

Ch. What say'st thou, mourner ? 

Elect. Woe to thee, 

If the dewy slumber flee. 

Ch. Yet wail I his unhappy state ; 
Abhorred deeds of deadly hate, 
Rage of vindictive, torturing woes, 
Which the relentless powers of heaven impose. 



480A.C.] EURIPIDES. 319 

Elect. Unjust, unjust, the stern command, 
The stern command Apollo gave 

From Themis' seat, his ruthless hand 
In blood, in mother's blood, to lave. 

Ch. He stirs, he moves his covering vest. 

Meet. "Wretch, thy voice has broke his rest. 

Ch. And yet, I think, sleep locks his eye. 

Elect. Wilt thou begone ? Hence wilt thou fly, 
That quiet here again may dwell? 

Ch. Hush, hush! he sleeps again — 

Elect. 'Tis well 

Ch. Awful queen, whose gentle power 
Brings sweet oblivion of our woes, 

And in the calm and silent hour, 
Distils the blessings of repose, — 
Come, awful Night I 

Elect. Softly let your warblings flow; 
Farther, a farther distance keep: 

The far-off cadence, sweet and low 
Charms his repose and aids his sleep. 

Ch. Tell us what end 

Awaits his miseries ? 

Elect. Death! that end I fear. 

He tastes no food. 

Ch. Death then indeed is near. 

Elect. When Phoebus gave the dire command 
To bathe in mother's blood his hand, 
By whom the father sunk in dust, 
He doom'd us victims. 

Ch. Dire these deeds, but just. 

Orest. (waking.) gentle Sleep, whose lenient power thus soothes 
Disease and pain, how sweet thy visit to me, 
Who wanted thy soft aid ! Blessing divine, 
That to the wretched givest wished repose, 
Steeping their senses in forgetfulness ! 
Where have I been ? Where am I ? How brought hither ? 
My late distraction blots remembrance out. 

Elect. What heartfelt joy to see thee thus composed ! 
Wilt thou I touch thee? Shall I raise thee up? 

Orest. Assist me then, assist me ; from my mouth 
Wipe off the clotted foam ; wipe my moist eyes. 

Elect. Delightful office, for a sister's hand 
To minister relief to a sick brother ! 

Orest. Lie by my side, and from my face remove 
These squalid, locks ; they blind my darken'd eyes. 

Elect. How tangled are the ringlets of thy hair. 

Orest. Pray, lay me down again; when this ill phrenzy 
Leaves me, I am feeble, very faint. 

Elect. There, there; the bed is grateful to the sick. 

Orest. Raise me again, more upright; bend me forward. 

Ch. The sick are wayward through their restlessness. 

Elect. Or wilt thou try with slow steps on the ground 
To fix thy feet ? Variety is sweet. 



320 EURIPIDES. [Leot. XII. 

Orest. Most "willingly ; it hath the show of health : 
The seeming hath some good, though void of truth. 

Meet. Now, my loved brother, hear me while the Furies 
Permit thy sense thus clear and undisturbed. 

Orest. Hast thou aught new ? If good, I thank thee for it ; 
If ill, I have enough of ill already. 

Elect. Thy father's brother, Menelaus, arrives; 
His fleet lies anchor'd in the Nauphian bay. 

Orest. Comes he then ? Light on our afflictions dawns ; 
Much to my father's kindness doth he owe. 

Elect. He comes ; and to confirm what now I say, 
Brings Helena from Ilium's ruin'd walls. 

Orest. More to be envied, were he saved alone ; 
Bringing his wife, he brings a mighty ill. 

Elect. The female race of Tyndarus was born 
To deep disgrace, and infamous through Greece. 

Orest. Be thou unlike them then ; 'tis in thy power ; 
And farther than in words thy virtue prove. 

Elect. Alas, my brother, wildly rolls thine eye : 
So quickly changed! The frantic fit returns. 

Orest. Ah, mother ! Do not set thy furies on me. 
See how their fiery eye-balls glare in blood. 
And wreathing snakes hiss in their horrid hair ! 
There, there they stand, ready to leap upon me ! 

Elect. Rest thee, poor brother, rest upon thy bed : 
Thou seest them not; 'tis fancy's coinage all. 

Orest. Phoebus, they will kill me ! these dire forms, 
These Gorgon-visaged ministers of hell. 

Elect. Thus will I hold thee, round thee throw mine arms, 
And check the unhappy force of thy wild starts. 

Orest. Off; Let me go! I know thee, who thou art — 
One of the Furies — and thou grapplest with me, 
To whirl me into Tartarus. Avaunt ! 

Elect. What shall I do? Ah me! Where shall I seek 
Assistance, since the once friendly god frowns on us ? 

Orest. Bring me the bow and horn which Phoebus gave me, 
And with it bade me drive these fiends away, 
Should they affright me with their maddening terrors. 

Elect. Can any god by mortal hands be wounded? 

Orest. Should she not instant vanish from my sight — 
Heard you the clang ; saw you the winged shaft 
Bound from the distant-woundfhg bow ? Ha, ha ! 
Hear yet ! On swift wings mount the sethereal air, 
And there impeach the oracle of Phoebus ! — 
Whence this disquiet ? Why thus pants my breath ? — 
Ah, whither have I wandered from my bed ? 
Why dost thou weep, my sister ? Why decline 
Thy drooping head and hide it in thy vest ? 
I blush to give thee part in my disease, 
And wound with grief thy virgin tenderness. 
Let not my life be thus infectious to thee ; 
Thou barely didst assent; I did the deed; 






480A.C.] EURIPIDES. 321 

I shed her blood. But Phoebus I must name 
Who urged me to this most unholy act ; 
Then, save with soothing words, assist me not. 
Had these eyes seen my father, had I asked him 
In duty if I ought to slay my mother ? 
I think he would have prayed me not to plunge 
, My murdering sword in her who gave me birth, 
Since he could not revisit heaven's sweet light 
And I must suffer all these miseries. 
But now unveil thy face and dry thy tears, 
My sister, though afflictions press us sore ; 
And when thou seest me in these fitful moods, 
Soothe my disordered sense, and let thy voice 
Speak peace to my distraction: when the sigh 
Swells in thy bosom, 'tis a brother's part 
With tender sympathies to calm thy griefs ; 
These are the blessed offices of friends. — 
But to thy chamber go, afflicted maid, 
There seek repose, close thy long-sleepless eyes, 
With food refresh thee and the enlivening bath. 
Should'st thou forsake me, or with too close tendance 
Impair thy delicate and tender health, 
Then were I lost indeed; for thou alone, 
Abandoned as I am, art all my comfort. 

Elect. Should I forsake thee ! No ; my choice is fix'd ; 
And I will die with thee, or with thee live. 

The following brief fragments are too fine to be lost : — 



FRAGMENTS. 

I. 
Dear is that valley to the murmuring bees ; 
And all, who know it, come and come again. 
The small birds build there; and at summer noon, 
Oft have I heard a child, gay among flowers, 
As in the shining grass she sate concealed, 
Sing to herself * * * * 

II. 

This is true liberty, when free-born men, 
Having to advise the public, may speak free; 
Which he who can and will, deserves high praise : 
Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace : 
What can be juster in a State than this ? 

in. 
There is a streamlet issuing from a rock. 
The village-girls singing wild madrigals, 
Dip their white vestments in its waters clear, 
And hang them to the sun. There first I saw her. 

21 



322 TRAGIC POETS. [Lect. XII. 

Her dark and eloquent eyes, mild, full of fire, 
'Twas heaven to look upon; and her sweet voice, 
As tuneable as harp of many strings, 
At once spoke joy and sadness to my soul ! 

The reputation of JEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides as tragic poets 
was such, that Athens, after their death, distinguished them and their 
works by founding institutions the object of which was to preserve their 
dramas pure and unadulterated, and to protect them from being altered 
or interpolated at the caprice of actors. Eventually they were entirely- 
withdrawn from the stage, and confined to the archives of the city, to be 
consulted only on the most important occasions. When Ptolemy Phila- 
delphus, king of Egypt, desired to grace his library at Alexandria with a 
copy of the plays of Euripides, and requested the magistrates of Athens 
to allow him to take a copy of them for that purpose, they required of 
him a pledge of nine Attic talents — a sum equal to nine thousand dol- 
lars — for the safe return of the originals. The work being completed, 
the king retained the original plays, returned the copy, and forfeited his 
pledge. 

We are not, however, to conclude that the contemporaries of those 
great poets were insignificant writers ; for a number of them not only 
maintained their place on the stage beside them, but frequently gained 
the tragic prize in competition with them. Yet, though their separate 
productions may have been sufficiently happy to merit the approbation 
of the public, the general character of these poets must have been de- 
ficient in that depth and peculiar force of genius by which the great tra- 
gedians were distinguished. Hence the facility with which their works 
sank into oblivion. 

The chief of the contemporaries and successors of the great tragic 
poets of Athens were, Neophron, Ion, Aristarchus, Achceus, Carcinus, 
Xenocles. Agathon, Ckceremon, and Theodictes. Of these poets our de- 
sign requires that we should give but a very brief notice. 

Neophron was a native of Sicyon, and, according to Suidas, was the 
author of one hundred and twenty dramas ; of which, however, little far- 
ther is known. The ' Medea,' one of his plays, is said to have furnished 
Euripides with the plot of his great tragedy of the same name. 

Ion was born at Chios, but in his youth he removed to Athens, 
where he passed the remainder of his life. He lived on terms of intimacy 
with Cimon and iEschylus, and enjoyed the esteem of most of the great 
men of that period. Besides tragedies, he wrote history, philosophy, 
lyric, elegiac, and dithyrambic poems, and forty fables. He did not write 
tragedies, however, till after the death of iEschylus, when he became a 
competitor for the tragic prize, and was once successful. Ion is said, by 



480A.C.] TRAGIC POETS. 323 

Longinus, to have been surnamed ' The Eastern Star,' because he died 
while writing an ode which began with these words. The beauty and ex- 
cellence of his poetry, according to the same critic, consisted rather in the 
absence of faults than in the presence of sublime ideas. He wrote with 
polish, correctness, and graceful ornament, but without the fire and en- 
thusiasm of genius. Ion was one of the five canonical tragic poets of the 
Alexandrian grammarians. 

Aristarchus was of Tegea, and commenced his dramatic career at 
Athens 454 A.C. Little is known of him as a dramatic writer, farther 
than that he was the first to produce tragedies according to the standard 
of greater length which was subsequently observed by Sophocles and Eu- 
ripides. Some of his tragedies, particularly his Achilles, were very pop- 
ular with the Romans, and were imitate^ by Ennius. 

Achaeus was a native of Eretria, and was born 484 A.C. The titles 
of seventeen of his tragedies are still extant, and he is said to have exhib- 
ited many more, though he gained but one prize. His principal merit 
seems to have been as a writer of satiric dramas. His manner was ex- 
tremely artificial, and his expressions often forced and obscure ; but not- 
withstanding these peculiarities, he obtained the favorable opinion of 
many ancient critics, who considered him the best writer of satiric plays 
after JEschylus. Achseus was also admitted into the Alexandrian canon. 

Carcinus, with his sons, forms a family of tragedians, known to us 
chiefly from the jokes and mockeries of Aristophanes. The father was 
a tragedian, and the sons appeared as choral dancers in his plays ; only 
one of them, Xenocles, also devoted himself to poetry. As far as we can 
judge from a few hints, both father and son were distinguished by a sort 
of antiquated harshness in their mode of expression. Yet Xenocles, with 
his tragic trilogy, (Edipus, Lycaon^ Bacchce, and the satirical drama 
Athamas, gained the prize over the trilogy of Euripides to which the 
Troades belonged. A later tragedian by the name of Carcinus was a 
native of Agrigentum in Sicily. 

Agathon was a very singular character. He belonged to a very 
wealthy Athenian family, and presented his first tragedy to the public 
416 A.C, when he was in the thirtieth year of his age. The latter part 
of his life he passed at the court of Archelaus, King of Macedon, where 
he died about 400 A.C. His strange demeanor and habits afforded to 
Aristophanes and Plato an opportunity of giving some sketches of him, 
which bring the man before our eyes in the most vivid and striking man- 
ner. Naturally delicate and effeminate, both in body and in mind, he 
gave himself up entirely to his prevailing mood, and coquetted with a 
sort of grace and charm with which he endeavored to invest everything 



324 TRAGIC POETS. [Lect. XII. 

that he undertook. The lyrical part of his tragedies was an amiable and 
insinuating display of cheerful thoughts and kindly images, but did not 
penetrate deeply into the feelings. The most celebrated of his dramas 
was entitled the Flower, the possession of which, from its original and 
peculiar character, we should very highly prize. 

The families of these great poets themselves, contributed very essen- 
tially to continue the tragic art after their deaths. iEschylus was fol- 
lowed by a succession of tragedians who nourished through several gene- 
rations. His son, Euphorion, sometimes brought out plays of his father's 
which had not been represented before, sometimes dramas of his own, and 
he gained the tragic prize in competition with both Sophocles and Euri- 
pides. Philocles also, a nephew of iEschylus, gained the prize against 
the King (Edipus of Sophocles, notwithstanding the peculiar excellences 
of that great work. Astydamas, another relative of iEschylus, brought out, 
after the Peloponnesian war, no less than two hundred and forty dramas, 
and gained fifteen victories. 

Of the family of Sophocles, Iophon was an active and popular tragedian 
in his father's lifetime, and Aristophanes speaks of him in unqualified 
terms of praise. Some years afterwards the younger Sophocles, the 
grandson of the great poet, came forward, at first with the legacy of un- 
published dramas which his grandfather had left him, and soon after with 
plays of his own. As he gained the prize twelve times, he must have 
been one of the most prolific poets of the day, and the most formidable 
rival of Astydamas. The younger Euripides, a son or nephew of the 
great poet, also gained some reputation by the side of these descendants 
of iEschylus and Sophocles. He bears the same tragic relation to his 
uncle or father, that Euphorion bears to iEschylus, and the younger So- 
phocles to his grandfather — having first brought out plays written by his 
renowned kinsman, and then tried the success of his own productions. 

From the time that the immediate successor whom we have named, 
of the great tragic poets, left the stage, tragedy became subordinate to 
other branches of literature. The lyric poetry and the rlietoric of the 
age had an especial influence on its form. It was losing more and more 
every day the predominance of ideas and feelings, and that the minor 
accessories of composition, which were formerly subjected to the ruling 
conceptions, were now, as it were, gradually becoming independent of 
them. It hunts about for stray charms to gratify the senses, and con- 
sequently loses sight of the true object, to elevate the thoughts and en- 
noble the sensibilities. 

Chseremon, who flourished about 380 A.C., possessed so much of the 
lyrical poetry of his time, that he completely sacrificed the variety of 



356A.C] TRAGIC POETS. 325 

character to a striving after metrical variety of expression. In his 
1 Centaur] which seems to have been a most extraordinary compound of 
epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry, he mixed up, according to Aristotle, all 
kinds of metres. His dramatic productions were rich in descriptions, 
which did not, like those of the old tragedians, belong to the pieces, and 
contribute to place in a clearer light the condition, the relations, and the 
deeds of some person engaged in the action, but sprung altogether from a 
fondness for delineating subjects which produce a pleasing impression 
on the senses. But with this mixture of foreign ingredients tragedy 
ceases to be a drama, in the proper sense of the word, in which everything 
depends on the causes and developments of actions, and on manifestations 
of the will of man. Accordingly, Aristotle calls Chgeremon a poet to 
le read, and says that he is careful and accurate in details, like a pro- 
fessed writer whose sole object is the satisfaction of his reader. 

Theodectes was born at Phaselis, about 356 A.C., but soon removed 
to Athens where he continued permanently to reside. Rhetoric was his 
chief study, though he also applied himself to philosophy. He belongs 
to the scholars of Isocrates, and though he left the rhetorical school for 
the tragic stage, he never gave up his original pursuits, but appeared 
both as an orator and a tragedian. At the splendid funeral feast, which 
the Carian queen, Artemisia, instituted in honor of Mausolus, the husband 
for whom she mourned so ostentatiously, 353 A.C., Theodectes, in competi- 
tion with Theopompus and other orators, delivered a panegyric on the de- 
ceased, and at the same time produced a tragedy, the Mausolus, the ma- 
terials for which were probably borrowed from the mythical traditions or 
early history of Caria. Theodectes' dramas so perfectly suited the cor- 
rupt taste of the age in which he lived, that out of fifteen tragic contests 
he gained eight victories. They were all, however, displays of rhetoric 
rather than of poetry. 



tniuxt tju €§iiitnl§. 

COMEDY. 

SUSARION.— MYLLUS.— EUETES.— EUXONIDES.— CHIONIDES.-MAGNES. 
— ECPHANTIDES. — EPICHARMUS.— PHORMIS. — CRATINUS.— EUPO- 
LIS.— CRATES.— PLATO.— PHERECRATES.— PHILONADES, Ac. 

THE origin of the Greek comedy was similar to that of tragedy. As 
the latter was the development of the dithyrambic chorus, so the 
former grew out of the phallic songs. At the rural festivals, in which 
the country-loving Greeks took such intense delight, when the harvest or 
the vintage was over, a band of jovial revellers formed dances and pro- 
cessions, bearing aloft in triumphant merriment the emblem of fertility 
and increase, so prominent, not only in Greek, but also in Egyptian and 
Asiatic worship. The leader sung a broad convivial song, while the rest 
joined in a rude and boisterous chorus. In these rustic rejoicings we 
discern the first gleam both of the dramatic and choral portions, and 
hence the custom of the song and the dance accompanying the reveller, 
and the etymology of the term comedy — the song or ode of the Comus. 

Comedy, like tragedy, was at first, according to Aristotle, entirely 
extempore — rude and biting jests, indecent and licentious songs, such as 
might be expected from the nature of the phallic ceremony, accompanied 
by gestures, like those of mountebanks, delighted the admiring crowd. 
This amusement first assumed a tangible form in Icaria, one of the prov- 
inces of Attica, and the inhabitants of this district first incorporated it 
with the worship of Dionysus or Bacchus, which they are said to have 
introduced into Greece. According to an ancient chronicle Susarion, a 
native of Megara, and a contemporary of Solon, was in the habit of amusing 
the Icarians by carrying from place to place, on carts, his company of 
buffoons, whose faces, instead of being concealed by masks, were smeared 
with the lees of wine. Hence his actors were called lee-singers, and 
comedy acquired the name of the lee-song. 

Susarion, to whom the origin of Attic comedy is ascribed, was the son 



328 SUSARION. [Lect. XII. 

of Philinus, and a native of Tripodiscus, a village in the Megaric terri- 
tory, whence he removed into Attica, to the village of Icaria, a place 
celebrated as a seat of the worship of Dionysus. The claim of the Mega- 
rians, which is generally admitted, to the invention of comedy, is based 
upon this circumstance. Before the time of Susarion there were, doubt- 
less, practiced at Icaria and the other Attic villages, that extempore jest- 
ing and buffoonery to which we have already alluded, and which formed 
a marked feature of the festivals of Dionysus ; but Susarion was the first 
who so regulated this species of amusement, as to lay the foundation of 
Comedy, properly so called. The time at which this important step was 
taken can be pretty accurately ascertained. The Megaric comedy appears 
to have flourished in its full development as early as 600 A.C. ; and it 
was introduced by Susarion into Attica about 575 A.C. 

That the comedy introduced by Susarion into Attica partook of the 
rudeness and buffoonery of that of Megara, may be reasonably supposed ; 
but, at the same time, there can be no doubt that, in his hands, a great 
and decided advance was made in the character of the composition, which 
now, in fact, for the first time, deserved that name. One change, which 
he introduced, is alone sufficient to mark the difference between an un- 
regulated exercise of wit, and an orderly composition — the adoption, into 
his pieces, of the metrical form of language. It is not, however, to be 
inferred from this, that the comedies of Susarion were written ; on the 
contrary, they were brought forward solely through the medium of the 
chorus, which Susarion, doubtless, subjected to certain rules. 

Of the nature of Susarion's subjects we have no certain knowledge ; 
but it can hardly be conceived that his comedies were made up entirely 
of the mere jests which formed the staple of the Megaric comedy; 
although there could only have been a very imperfect approach to any- 
thing like connected arguments or plots. The improvements of Susarion 
on the Megaric comedy, which he introduced into Aitica, consisted in the 
substitution of premeditated metrical compositions, for irregular extem- 
poraneous effusions, and, to some extent, the regulation of the chorus. 
It was long before this new species of composition took firm root in At- 
tica; for we hear nothing more of it until eighty years after the time of 
Susarion, when the art was revived by Myllus, Euetes, Euxonides, and 
Chionides. This will not, however, surprise us if we recollect that this 
long interval is almost entirely filled up by the long tyranny of Pisis- 
tratus and his sons, who would feel it due to their dignity and security 
not to allow a comic chorus, even under the mask of Bacchic inebriety 
and merriment, to utter ribald jests against them before the assembled 
people of Athens ; as understood by the Athenians of those days, com- 
edy could not be brought to perfection except by republican freedom 
and equality. This was the reason why comedy continued so long an ob- 



487A.C] S US A III ON. 329 

scure amusement of noisy rustics, which no archon superintended; and 
which no particular poet was willing to avow: although, even in this 
modest retirement, it made some sudden advances, and developed, com- 
pletely, its dramatic form. 

The tyranny, of the Pisistratidas being overthrown, and the fullest liberty 
enjoyed by the people of Athens, the comic spirit at once revived ; and 
under the guidance of Myllus, Euetes, and Euxenides, became a prominent 
species of entertainment. 

Myllus, according to Eustathius, was an actor as well as a dramatist, 
and still adhered to the old practice of having the faces of his actors be- 
smeared with red ocre. He appears to have been especially successful in 
the representation of a deaf man, who,- nevertheless, hears everything; 
whence arose the proverb, c None so deaf as those who will not hear.' As 
no fragments of his comedies have been preserved, we have no means of 
judging of his poetic merits. Euetes and Euxenides, are mentioned by 
Suidas as the contemporaries of Myllus, and his fellow laborers in reviv- 
ing the comedy of Susarion ; but nothing farther is known of them. 

Chionides, Magnes, and Ecphantides, immediately followed the three 
comic poets above mentioned in the order of time, and doubtless reduced 
their dramas to a much more definite form. 

Chionides is placed by Aristotle and Suidas at the head of the old 
school of comedy — not in the order of time, but as the poet who gave to 
the Athenian comedy that form which it retained down to the time of 
Aristophanes, and of which the old comic lyric songs of Attica, and the 
Megaric buffoonery imported by Susarion, were only the rude elements. 
He commenced his dramatic career eight years before the Persian war, 
that is, 487 A.C., but time has spared us no fragments of his dramas by 
which to judge of their poetic merits. 

Magnes was a native of the province of Icaria, in Attica, and is men- 
tioned by Aristotle as contemporary with Chionides. In a passage of 
the Knights of Aristophanes, the poet upbraids the Athenians for their 
inconsistency towards Magnes, who had been extremely popular, but lived 
to find himself out of fashion. The cause of the declension in his popu- 
larity was, that in his latter plays he restricted the mimetic element which 
had prevailed in the earlier comedy, introduced much less of low buffoon- 
ery, and thus refused to pander to the taste of the audience. This char- 
acteristic of Athenian comedy, which Magnes had the honor of originating, 
Aristophanes and his contemporary comic poets afterwards carried to 
perfection. Magnes, according to Suidas, exhibited many comedies, and 
gained eleven prizes ; and it is worthy of notice that he is the earliest 
comic poet of whom we find any victories recorded. Of the whole number 
of his dramas not half a dozen lines have been preserved. 



330 EPICHARMUS. [Lect. XIII. 

Ebphantides was a native of Athens, and a contemporary of Magnes. 
He seems, in his comedies, to have occupied a kind of middle ground, 
between the old Megaric comedy, and the refined school of Cratinas and 
his associates ; for while he ridiculed the rudeness of the former, he was 
himself ridiculed on the same ground by the latter. His personal char- 
acter appears to have been not so elevated as that of his associates ; and 
hence a sirname was bestowed upon him by his rival, which seems to im- 
ply a mixture of subtlety and obscurity. Ecphantides owned a slave 
named Choerilus, of rare endowments, by whom he is said to have been 
assisted in the composition of his plays. He was the first Athenian comic 
poet from whom the expense of providing his chorus-singers was removed. 
Of all his plays but a single line has been preserved. 

While Chionides and his associate dramatists were perfecting the form 
of the Megaric comedy in Athens, Epicharmus and Phormis of Sicily, 
commenced their career as comic writers in their native island ; and if we 
may rely upon the statement of Aristotle they soon so far surpassed their 
Attic contemporaries, as to be considered by all antiquity the founders 
of the regular Greek comic drama. 

Epicharmus was born in the island of Cos, about 540 A.C. His father 
Elothales, was a physician of the race of the Asclepiads, and the profes- 
sion of medicine seems to have been followed for some time by Epichar- 
mus himself, and also by his brother. At the age of three months he was 
carried by his father to Megara, in Sicily, where, having been educated 
he remained until the city was destroyed by Gelon, tyrant of Jsfyracuse, 
484 A.C. After the destruction of Megara, Epicharmus took up his 
residence in Syracuse, and there spent the remainder of his life, which 
was prolonged throughout the reign of Hiero, at whose court he associated 
with iEschylus, Simonides, Pindar, and other distinguished writers of 
that period. He died at the advanced age of ninety-seven, 443 A.C, and 
to his memory the city of Syracuse erected a statue, with the following 
inscription, as preserved by Diogenes Laertius : 

The starry train as far. as Phoebus drowns, 
And ancient Ocean his unequal sons ; 
Beyond mankind we'll Epicharmus own, 
On whom just Syracuse bestow'd the crown. 

In order to perceive more clearly the source whence Epicharmus re- 
ceived his first ideas of the early comic poetry, we must remember that 
Megara, in Sicily, was a colony from Megara in Greece, where, as we 
have already observed, a species of comedy was known as early as the 
sixth century before the Christian era. This comedy was, of course, 
found by Epicharmus in the Sicilian Megara ; and seizing upon its rude 



'640A.C] EPIC HA RHUS. 331 

elements, he reduced them to a regular plot, and appropriated the 
whole to mythological subjects. He did not, however, confine himself to 
these, but embraced also in his dramas subjects political, moral, relat- 
ing to manners and customs, and even to personal character. His per- 
sonal comedies, however, were rather general than particular, and re- 
semble the subjects treated by the writers of the new comedy; so that 
when the ancient critics enumerated him among the poets of the old 
comedy, they must be understood to refer rather to his antiquity in point 
of time, than to any close resemblance between his works and those of 
the old Attic comedians. 

Epicharmus was educated in the school of Pythagoras, and this may 
account for his stern moral maxims, and the peculiarities of his style, 
which appears to have been a curious mixture of the broad buffoonery 
that distinguished the old Megarian comedy, and of the sententious wis- 
dom of the Pythagorean philosopher. His language was remarkably 
elegant, his epithets choice and delicate, and his plays, which were all 
written in the Doric dialect, abounded, as the extant fragments show, with 
philosophical and moral maxims, and with long speculative discourses. 
M tiller observes that, 'if the elements of his dramas, which we have 
discovered singly, were in his plays combined, he must have set out 
with an elevated and philosophical view, which enabled him to satirize 
mankind without disturbing the calmness and tranquillity of his thoughts ; 
while, at the same time, his scenes of common life were marked with the 
acute and penetrating genius which characterized the Sicilians.' 

Epicharmus, though he passed the early part of his life in philosoph- 
ical pursuits, medical studies, and the instruction of youth, was still a 
very liberal benefactor to the stage. According to Suidas, he was the 
the author of fifty-two dramas ; and this statement cannot be far from 
correct, as modern philologists have given the titles of forty, with the 
authorities by which they are ascertained. From these we select such 
as indicate the themes of his personal comedies : 

The Husbandman — The Banditti — Earth and Sea — The Father of 
the People — The Bacchanalians — Hope — The Festival — The Reasoner 
— The Chatterlings — The Pedagogues — The Statesman — The Potters 
— Hebe's Wedding. 

The following brief fragments are all that remain of the writings of 
this interesting poet. The first is, in all probability, from ' Hebe's Wed- 
ding;' and here we may remark that there is no subject upon which the 
ancient 'comic poets whet their wit more frequently than marriage. The 
wives of Syracuse could not have been much obliged to Epicharmus for 
the following sally : 



332 EPICHARMUS. [Lect. XHI. 



MARRIAGE. 

Marriage is like 

A east of dice ! Happy indeed his lot 
"Who gets a good wife — one of morals pure 
And withal easy temper. But alight on 
A gadding, gossiping, expensive jade, 
And heaven deliver thee! 'Tis not a wife 
Thou weddest, but an everlasting plague, 
A devil in she's clothing. There is not 
In the habitable globe so dire a torment; 
I know it to my cost : — the better luck 
Is his who never tried it. 



Epicharmus, in the comedy of ' The Statesmen,' introduces the fol- 
lowing retort from a man of low birth to a prattling old woman, who is 
vaporing about her ancestry : 



GENEALOGIES. 

Good gossip, if you love me, prate no more : 

"What are your genealogies to me? 

Away to those who have more need of them! 

Let the degenerate wretches, if they can, 

Dig up dead honor from then* father's tombs, 

And boast it for their own — vain, empty boast ! 

"When every common fellow that they meet, 

If accident hath not cut off the scroll, 

Can show a list of ancestry a3 long. 

You call the Scythians barbarous, and despise them ; 

Yet Anacharsis was a Scythian born; 

And every man of a like noble nature, 

Though he were moulded from an iEthiop's loins, 

Is nobler than your pedigrees can make him. 

The following maxims indicate the Pythagorean philosopher, and, per- 
haps, the instructor of youth — a profession in which Epicharmus is sup 
posed to have passed many years of his life : 



MORAL MAXIMS. 

Be sober in thought ! be slow in belief ! These are the sinews of wisdom. 

It is the part of a wise man to foresee what ought to be done, so shall he not 
repent of what is done. 

Throw not away thine anger upon trifles ! Reason and not rage should govern. 



540A.C] PHORMIS. 333 

Mankind are more indebted to industry than to ingenuity : the gods set up 
their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser. 

A man without merit shall live without envy ; but who would wish to escape 
on these terms. 

Live so as to hold yourself prepared either for a long life or for a short one. 

Phormis, another Dorian comic poet of Sicily, was a native of Msena- 
lus, in Arcadia ; but having early removed to Sicily, he soon became inti- 
mate with Gelon, by whom he was liberally patronized, and whose chil- 
dren he educated. As a soldier also, Phormis is represented to have 
distinguished himself, under both G-elon and Hiero ; and that he prided 
himself on his military achievements is evident from the statement of 
Pausanias, who informs us that, in gratitude for his martial successes, he 
dedicated gifts to Zeus at Olympia, and to Apollo at Delphi. According 
to the same authority, Ly cor tas, a weal thy inhabitant of Syracuse, through 
admiration of Phormis' bravery, dedicated a splendid statue to his 
memory, representing him in the heat of battle. 

The dramatic success of Epicharmus, finally induced Phormis to turn 
his attention also, to the writing of comedies ; and his brilliant success, 
like that of iEschylus in the department of tragedy, seems to favor the 
idea, that early martial habits contribute to develop dramatic genius. 
Suidas has preserved the names of eight comedies written by Phormis ; 
and he also informs us that he was the first to introduce actors with 
robes reaching to the ankles, and to ornament the stage with skins died 
purple — as drapery, it may be presumed. From the titles of his plays, it 
is evident that his subjects were similar to those of Epicharmus ; but un- 
fortunately not a fragment of his poetry has been preserved. 

Dinolochus, according to some authorities, the son, and to others, the 
pupil, of Epicharmus, was the last of the Doric comic writers of this 
period. He is variously represented as a native of Agrigentum and of 
Syracuse, and is said to have written fourteen comedies ; the titles only 
of a few of which, however, have been preserved. From all that we can 
learn his dramas have a striking similarity to those of Phormis, though 
some of them were, perhaps, more characteristic. 

While Epicharmus, Phormis, and Dinolochus were thus giving form, 
stability, and poetic character to the Dorian comic drama of Sicily, three 
comic poets of Athens, Cratinus, Eupolis, and Aristophanes, commenced, 
in regular succession, in their native city, a dramatic career which 
eventuated in carrying the Attic comedy to the height of perfection. The 
largest liberty was now fully enjoyed in Athens, and to their acrimonious 
muse these satiric poets, therefore, sat no bounds. The Old Comedy, as 
it is technically called, now assumed a fixed and determinate character. 



334 ATTIC COMEDY. [Lect XIIL 

Of this first school of Attic comedy the characteristic feature is per- 
sonality ; and, in order to form a correct estimate of its nature, it is 
necessary to divest the mind of all ideas which it has derived from 
comedies of modern times. The tragic principle is the same in all ages ; 
and hence between ancient and modern tragedy there are many points of 
resemblance ; but the old Attic comedy is totally unlike its modern 
namesake. It is quite sui generis — there is nothing with which it can 
be compared. In its loose and unconnected structure, the incompleteness 
and want of uniformity in its plot, it somewhat resembles a modern panto- 
mime. Like pantomime, it consists of numerous independent scenes and 
ludicrous situations, satirical attacks on the vices, and sparkling allusions 
to the prevalent follies of the day ; and much of the humor consists in 
practical jokes, as well as in the smartness of the dialogue and repartee. 
It also indulged in the most unrestrained personalities. Ileal personages 
were exhibited on the stage, and the shafts of the poet's ridicule were 
fearlessly directed against them. These gross attacks were not confined 
to public characters only, who might be considered fair marks for cen- 
sure as well as praise, but the secrets of domestic life were laid open, its 
sanctity violated, the faults of private characters held up to odium or 
ridicule, and even virtuous and patriotic conduct sometimes misrepre- 
sented. 

From the virulence of these comic poets nothing was safe. The most 
serious business of life was caricatured — the most time-honored political in- 
stitutions unsparingly criticised — the whole public administration, educa- 
tional, legal, financial, and executive, remorselessly attacked. Besides this, 
the poet, assumed to himself the functions of a literary censor : he aspired 
to lead the public taste, and direct the critical judgment of the Athenian 
people on all literary and philosophical questions. But all this abuse 
and slander, and caricature and criticism, was conveyed in the most 
exquisite and polished style : it was recommended by all the refinements 
of taste and the graces of poetry. It was in consequence of this exquisite 
elegance and purity, which distinguished the style of the Attic comic 
writing, as well as its energetic power, that Quintilian recommends an 
orator to study, as the best models next to Homer, the writings of the 
old Attic comedy. 

That this comedy abounded in grossness and obscenity, such as would 
not be tolerated in dramatic exhibitions of the present day, cannot be 
doubted. But an age in which man was not softened by the influence of 
good female society, the virtuous of the female sex were not educated 
so as to fit them for being companions of the men, whilst the vicious- 
applied themselves to the task of making the leisure hours of the male 
sex pass agreeably, by all the accomplishments and elegances of a finished 
education, was necessarily a gross one. The comic poet, therefore, was 
not, as has often been alleged, the corrupter of his countrymen ; for the 



519A.C.] CRATIETUS. 335 

most that can be said against him is, that, with all his taste, and talent, 
and education, he was not in advance of his age in this point — that he 
did not stem the tide of corruption — that he pandered to a degraded 
popular taste, instead of using his best efforts to mould it to a higher 
standard. 

The old comedy was to the Athenians the representative of many in- 
fluences which exist in the present day. It was the newspaper — the 
review — the satire — the pamphlet — the caricature — the pantomime of 
Athens. Addressed to the thousands who flocked to the theatre, to wit- 
ness the representation of a new comedy, most of whom were keenly 
alive to every witty allusion and stroke of satire, and who took a deep 
interest in everything of a public nature, because each individual was 
personally engaged in the administration of State affairs, the old comedy 
must have been a powerful engine for good or for evil. There can be 
little doubt that, scurrilous and immoral as it often was, the good, never 
theless, predominated. Gross and depraved as the Athenians were 
already, notwithstanding their refinement, it is not likely that comedy 
corrupted their morals in this respect. The vices which prevailed would 
have existed without it, and were neither increased nor fostered by it. 

The comic poets were, however, generally in favor of that which was 
pure in taste, sound and thorough in education, and honest and elevated 
in politics. Fostered as the free satire of comedy was by the unbounded 
license of a democracy, and owing its vigor, as well as its existence, to 
the patronage of a sovereign people, it neither spared the vices nor flat- 
tered the follies of its patrons. Like those of the court fool in the 
Middle Ages, its most biting jests were received with good humor, and 
welcomed as acceptable by its supporters, although they themselves were 
the objects of them. But notwithstanding the favor with which it was 
viewed by the people, its extreme personality eventually provoked the 
interference of the law. To this subject, however, our attention will be 
more particularly directed when we come to consider the Attic comedy of 
the Middle School. 

Cratinus was the son of Callimedes, and was born in Athens 519 A.C. 
Of his personal history very little is known. He did not commence 
writing comedies until he had passed the sixty-fifth year of his age, after 
which he produced twenty-one, and gained nine prizes. He lived to ex- 
treme old age, though, according to the loose morals of the Greeks, his 
passions were without restraint. He carried his love of wine to such ex- 
cess, that he obtained the name of c Philpot,' launching out in praise of 
drinking, and rallying all sobriety out of countenance — asserting that no 
poet can be good for anything who does not love his bottle ; and that 
dramatic poets in particular ought to drink freely in honor of Bacchus, 
for his peculiar patronage and protection of the stage. Horace, who 



336 CRATINUS. [Lect. XIII. 

was a thorough believer in the poetical inspiration of wine, supports 
his opinion by the authority of Cratinus in the following address to 
Maecenas : 

learned Maecenas, near Cratinus speak, 
And take this maxim from the gay old Greek ; 
No verse shall please or lasting honors gain, 
Which coldly flows from water-drinker's brain. 

The love of wine seems, indeed, to have occupied the place of merit 
among the Greeks ; but Cratinus' excess was attended, in his old age, 
with some marks of weakness and want of retention, incidental to an ex- 
hausted constitution. Of this Aristophanes, who was a younger man, 
though not much more abstemious, availed himself, and, accordingly, 
brought his old competitor on the stage, and held him up to ridicule for 
this infirmity. The charge was unmanly, and roused the aged veteran to 
return the attack. Cratinus at that time, through the infirmities of age, 
had left off writing, but he was not superannuated ; and he, accordingly, 
not only resumed his pen, but lived to complete and bring out a comedy, 
which he appropriately called The Flagon. 

In the plot of this piece the poet feigns himself married to comedy, 
whom he personifies, and represents the lady in disgust with her husband, 
for his unconjugal neglect. With this she distinctly charges him, and 
then openly sues for a divorce. Upon this hearing, certain friends and 
advocates are introduced in the scene in behalf of the party accused, who 
make suit to the dame to stay her proceedings, and not to be over-hasty 
in throwing off an old spouse ; but, on the contrary, recommend to her to 
enter calmly into an amicable discussion of her grievances. To this pro- 
posal she at length accedes, and this gives occasion to take up the charge 
of Aristophanes, accusing the old bard of drunkenness and the concomi- 
tant circumstances, which had been published with so much ill nature to 
make him ridiculous at the end of life. Then follows a very pleasant re- 
futation of all these libels, by which he contrives to turn the laugh against 
Aristophanes, and so concludes the comedy. , 

It affords us great satisfaction, even at this distant period of time, to 
know that Cratinus bore away the prize with this very comedy from both 
Aristophanes and Crates, and soon after expired in the arms of victory, 
in the ninety-eighth year of his age, and 422 A.C. The Athenians erected 
a monument to his memory, the epitaph upon which omitted all mention 
of his fine talents, and recorded nothing but his drunkenness. Thus, as 
he spared no man when living, even death itself would not protect him 
from retaliation. 

Cratinus was emphatically the poet of the old comedy. He gave it its 
peculiar character, and he did not, like Aristophanes, live to see its decline. 
Before his time the comic poets had aimed at little beyond exciting the 
laughter of their audience ; but he made comedy a terrible weapon of per- 



519A.O.] CRATINUS. 337 

sonal attack, and the comic poet a severe censor of public and private 
vice. An anonymous ancient writer says, that to the pleasing in comedy 
Cratinus added the useful, by accusing evil-doers and punishing them 
with comedy as with a public scourge. He did not even unite mirth with 
his satire ; but, according to his contemporaries, he hurled his reproaches 
in the plainest form at the bare heads of the offenders. Pericles was the 
object of his most persevering and vehement abuse ; but, on the other 
hand, upon Cimon he bestowed the highest praise, which shows that he 
was as discriminating as he was bold. 

Of the writings of this eminent ancient poet, once so great a favorite, 
scarcely a fragment is now to be found sufficiently perfect to merit a 
translation. One little spark of his genius, however, will be seen in the 
following epigrammatic turn of thought upon the loss of a statue which, 
as the workmanship of Daedalus, he supposes to have made use of its 
privilege, and escaped from its pedestal : 

My statue's gone ! By Daedalus 'twas made ; 
It is not stolen therefore ; it has stray'd. 

Suidas says Cratinus was ' splendid and bright in all his characters.' 
His style was full of spirit and energy, his language highly figurative, his 
metre so bold and grand, especially in the lyrical portion, as to have been 
considered equal to those of the tragedians, even of JSschylus himself. His 
great rival Aristophanes was fully aware of his fervid imagination, and of 
his impetuous and torrent-like eloquence. In the same passage in which he 
describes his desertion by his fickle and ungrateful admirers, he speaks 
of the high place which he ought to occupy in the public estimation, al- 
though he could not refrain from indulging his love of humor and 
satire : 

"Who Cratinus may forget, or the storm of whim and wit 

"Which shook theatres under his guiding ? 
"When Panegyric's song poured her flood of praise along 

"Who but he on the top wave was riding? 
Foe nor rival might he meet, plane and oak ta'en by the feet, 

Did him instant and humble prostration; 

For his step was as the tread of a flood that leaves its bed, 

And his march it was rude desolation. 
****** 

Thus in glory was he seen while his years as yet were green ; 

But now that his dotage is on him, 
God help himl for no eye of all those that p'ass him by 

Throws a look of compassion upon him. 
'Tis a couch, but with the loss of its garnish and its gloss ; 

'Tis a harp that hath lost all its crowning; 
'Tis a pipe where deftest hand may the stops no more command, 

Nor on its divisions be running. 

****** 

22 



338 EUPOLIS. [Lect. XIII. 

Oh, if ever yet a bard waited, page-like high reward, 

Former exploits and just reputation, 
By an emphasis of right, some had earned this noble wight, 

In the hall a most constant potation ; 
And in theatre's high station there a mark for admiration 

To anchor her aspect and face on ; 
In his honor he should sit, nor serve trifles in the pit 

As an object their rude jests to pass on. 

Eupolis became a very popular comic writer some years before the 
death of Cratinus. The bold strong spirit of his satire recommended 
him to the public more than the beauties and graces of his style, which 
he was not studious to polish. He attacked the most obnoxious and 
profligate characters in Athens, without any regard to his personal 
safety : to expose the cheat, and ridicule the imposter, was the glory of 
his muse ; and neither the terrors of the magistracy, nor the mysteries of 
superstition, could divert him from his course. 

Eupolis was the son of Sosipolis, and was born in Athens 446 A.C. 
He devoted himself to the drama from his youth, and his first comedy 
was exhibited 429 A.C, when he had but just attained the seventeenth 
year of his age. The date of his death cannot be so certainly ascertained. 
The common story was that Alcibiades, when sailing to Sicily, threw him 
into the sea, in revenge for'an attack which Eupolis had made upon him 
in his Baptae. But, to say nothing of the improbability of even Alcibia- 
des venturing on such an outrage, or the still stranger fact of its not 
being alluded to by Thucydides or any other trustworthy historian, the 
answer of Cicero is conclusive, that Eratosthenes mentioned plays pro- 
duced by Eupolis after the Sicilian expedition took place. The only dis- 
coverable foundation for this story, and probably the true account of the 
poet's death, is the statement of Suidas, that he perished at the Helles- 
pont in the war against the Lacedaemonians, which must necessarily refer 
either to the battle of Cynossema, 411 A.C, or to that of iEgospotami, 
405 A.C That he died in the former battle is not improbable, since we 
never hear of his exhibiting after 412 A.C; and if so it is very likely 
that the enemies of Alcibiades might charge him with taking advantage 
of the confusion of the battle to gratify his revenge. There are, how- 
ever, other accounts of the poet's death, which are altogether different. 
iElian relates that he died and was buried in iEgina ; and Pausanias 
says, that he saw his tomb in the territory of Sicyon. Of the personal 
history of Eupolis nothing farther is known. 

Eupolis, according to Suidas, was the author of seventeen comedies, 
the principal of which were, The Baptce, The Flatterers, The Lacedcemo- 
nians, The Marica, Tlie People, and the first and second Autolycus. 
From the severity with which Alcibiades and other prominent leaders 



446A.C] EUPOLIS. 339 

were attacked in { The Baptae,' originated the story of Eupolis' having 
been drowned, as already related. In ' The People,' by the fiction of the 
scene he raises the shades of their departed orators and demagogues from 
the dead ; and when Pericles, last of the troop, arises, the poet demands, 
' Who is it that appears ?' The question being answered, and the spirit 
of Pericles dismissed, he pronounces his encomium — ' That he was pre- 
eminent as an orator, for man never spoke as he spoke : when he started 
like a courser in the race, he threw all competitors out of sight, so rapid 
was the torrent of his eloquence ; but with that rapidity there flowed 
such a sweetness and persuasion from his lips, that he alone of all ora- 
tors, struck a sting into the very souls of his hearers, and left it there to 
remain forever.' In his { Lacedaemonians,' on the contrary, he attacks 
both the public and private character of Cimon, charging him with im- 
proper partiality for the Lacedaemonians, with drunkenness, and with 
many other vices of the most debasing kind. Plutarch takes notice of 
this attack, and says it had a great effect in stirring up the populace 
against this celebrated commander. This, however, must be a mistake, 
for Cimon died a number of years before Eupolis commenced his dram- 
atic career. The ' Maricas ' was written against the orator Hyperbolus, 
whom Thucydides mentioned to have been banished by ostracism. 

Of the following poetic fragments, the first is from l The People,' and 
the other from '• The Flatterers ' : 



ALTERED CONDITION" OF ATHENS. 

It grieves me to behold the common-wealth — 

Things were not thus administered of old ; 

Then men of sense and virtue, — men, whose merits 

Gave them consideration in the State, — 

Held the first offices : to such we bowed 

As to the gods — and gods, indeed, they were — 

For under their wise counsels we enjoyed 

Security and peace. — But now, alas! 

We have no other guide in our elections 

Save chance, blind chance, and on whatever head 

It falls, though worst and meanest of mankind, 

Up starts he a great man, and is at once 

Install'd prime Rogue and Minister of State. 

The lines which follow, from ' The Flatterers,' is a part of the speech 
of a parasite, and enumerates a few of the arts by which he gulls the rich 
boobies that fall in his way : 

THE PARASITE. 

Mark now, and learn of me the thriving art, 
By which we parasites contrive to live: 



340 EUPOLIS. [Lect.XIII. 

Fine rogues we are, my friend (of that be sure), 

And daintily we gull mankind. — Observe! 

First I provide myself a nimble thing 

To be my page, a varlet of all crafts ; 

Next two new suits for feasts and gala days, 

Which I promote by turns, when I walk forth 

To sun myself upon the public square: 

There, if perchance I spy some rich, dull knave, 

Straight I accost him, do him reverence, 

And, sauntering up and down with idle chat, 

Hold him awhile in play; at every word, 

"Which his wise worship utters, I stop short 

And bless myself for wonder ; if he ventures 

On some vile joke, I blow it to the skies, 

And hold my sides for laughter. Then to supper 

With others, with our brotherhood, to mess 

In some night-cellar on our barley cakes, 

And club inventions for the next day's shift. 

The chief characteristics of the poetry of Eupolis seem to have been 
the liveliness of his fancy, and the power which he possessed of imparting 
its images to the audience. This characteristic of his genius influenced 
Ms choice of his subjects, as well as his mode of treating them, so that 
he not only appears to have chosen subjects which other poets might 
have despaired of dramatizing, but we are expressly told that he wrought 
into the body of his plays those serious political views which other poets 
expounded in their parabases, as in the Baptae, in which he represented 
the legislators of other times conferring on the administration of the 
State. To do this in a genuine Attic old comedy, without converting the 
comedy into a serious philosophic dialogue, must have been a great 
triumph of dramatic art. The introduction of deceased persons on the 
stage appears to have given to the plays of Eupolis a certain dignity, 
which would have been inconsistent with the comic spirit, had it not been 
relieved by the most graceful and clever merriment. In elegance, though 
he rarely aimed at it, he is said to have been capable of rivalling even 
Aristophanes, while in bitter jesting and personal abuse he emulated 
Cratinus. Among the objects of his satire, as we have already seen, was 
the high-minded Cimon ; and even the excellent Socrates did not escape 
the shafts of his satire. Indeed, innocence seems to have afforded no 
shelter ; for he attacked Autolycus, who is said to have been guilty of 
no crime, and is only known as having been distinguished for his beauty, 
and as a victor in the pancratium, as vehemently as he did Callias, Alci- 
biades, Melanthius, and others of the same class. But such was the Old 
Comedy. * 

Reserving the life, genius, and writings of Aristophanes for a separate 
lecture, we shall now proceed briefly to notice Crates, Plato, Pherecrates, 



445 A.C.] CRATES. 341 

and Philonides, all of whom were distinguished comic poets of the old 
school, and contemporaries of Eupolis. 

' Crates ' was a native of Athens, hut of his family nothing is now 
known. He commenced his connection with the drama as an actor, per- 
sonated the principal characters in the plays of Cratinus, and was the 
great rival of Callistratus and Philonides — Aristophanes' two most 
favorite actors. He began to flourish about 445 A.C., and is alluded to 
by Aristophanes in such a way as to imply that he was dead before the 
Knights was acted — 424 A.C. If this be true, he died two years before 
Cratinus. With respect to the character of his dramas, there is a passage 
in the fifth book of Aristotle's Poetics, which seems to convey the idea 
that, instead of making his comedies vehicles of personal abuse, he chose 
such subjects as admitted of a more general mode of depicting character. 
His great excellence is attested by Aristophanes, and by the few frag- 
ments which remain of his plays. He excelled chiefly in fun and niirth, 
which he carried so far as to introduce drunken characters on the stage — 
a thing which Epicharmus had done, but which had never before been 
ventured upon by an Attic comedian. 

According to the authority of Suidas, Crates was the author of eight 
comedies, all of which were remarkable for their gaiety and facetious- 
ness. In the few fragments that still remain of his poetry, his language 
is pure, elegant, and simple, with rarely a peculiar word or construction. 
Aristotle ascribes to Crates an important innovation with respect to the 
iambic metre of the old comedy, which, by adding a spondaic ending to 
the anapaestic tetrameter, he made more free and apposite to familiar 
dialogue. Though, according to the voice of all antiquity, the general 
character of the dramas of Crates was gaiety and mirth, yet all the frag- 
ments that we now possess of his poetry, are remarkable for their grave 
and sententious cast. One of them is an observation on the effects of 
poverty; another is a short stricture on the gluttony of the Thessalians; 
a third is a remark upon the indecorousness of inviting women to wed- 
ding suppers, and making riotous entertainments at a ceremony which 
modesty would recommend to pass in private, and within the respective 
family where it occurs. The last fragment is the following touching and 
beautiful picture of old age, and the vanity of human wishes ; 

0]S T OLD AGE. 

These shrivel'd sinews and this bending frame 
The workmanship of Time's strong hand proclaim, 
Skill' d to remove whate'er the gods create, 
And make that crooked which they fashion straight. 
Hard choice for man, to die — or else to be 
That tottering, wretched, wrinkled thing you see. 



342 PLATO. [Lect. XIII. 

Age then we all prefer; for age we pray, 
And travel on to life's last lingering day, 
Then sinking slowly down from worse to worse, 
Find heaven's extorted boon our greatest curse 



Plato, the next comic poet of the Old School to be noticed was also 
a native of Athens, and flourished from 428 A.C., the year in which he 
presented his first comedy to the public, till 389 A.C., two years after 
the death of the historian Thucydides. Of the personal history of Plato 
nothing farther is known except the story told by Suidas, that he was so 
poor as to be obliged to write comedies for other persons. Suidas founds 
this statement on a passage of the Pisander of Plato, in which the poet 
alludes to his laboring for others ; but the story of his poverty is plainly 
nothing more than an arbitrary conjecture, made to explain the passage, 
the true meaning of which, doubtless, is, that, as was at that time 
no unusual case, he exhibited some of his plays in the names of other 
persons, but was naturally anxious to claim the merit of them for him- 
self when they had succeeded; and that he did so in the Parabasis of the 
Pisander, as Aristophanes does in the Parabasis of the Clouds. Arsenius 
entirely confirms this interpretation. 

Plato ranked among the very best poets of the Old Comedy. From 
the notice taken of him by the grammarians, and from the large num- 
ber of fragments of his poetry preserved, it is evident that his plays 
were only second in popularity to those of Aristophanes. Purity of 
language, refined sharpness of wit, and a combination of the vigor of the 
Old, with the greater elegance of the Middle and the New Comedy, were 
his chief characteristics. Though many of his plays appear to have had 
no political reference at all, yet it is evident that he kept up to the 
spirit of the Old Comedy in his attacks on the corruptions and corrupt 
persons of his age ; for he is charged by Dio Chrysostom with vitupera- 
tion — a curious charge truly, to bring against a professed satirist! 
Among the chief objects of his attack were the demagogues Creon, Hy- 
perbolus. Cleophon, the general Leagrus, and the orators Cephalus and 
Archinus. To these we may add his frequent attacks upon his great 
rival Aristophanes ; and, indeed, the mutual attacks of these two dis 
tinguished poets upon each other must be regarded as a striking proof 
of the esteem in which they held each other's talents. 

Plato was evidently one of the most diligent of the old comic poets. 
The number of his dramas, according to Suidas, was twenty-eight, though 
that critic enumerates the titles of thirty. Of these, the most noted 
were, the Pisander, already mentioned, the Beard, the Philosoplier 's 
Cloak, the Cleophon, the Phaon, the Perialges, the Hyperbolus, the 
Presbeis, and the Laius, which was, perhaps, the latest of his plays ex- 



445A.C.] PLATO. 343 

hibited. Of the fragments which remain of these dramas, we select the 
following, and much regret that we have in vain attempted to ascertain 
the particular plays to which they belonged. 

The following address to a statue of Mercury, cut by Daedalus, has in 
it much epigrammatic neatness and point. The poet mistakes the statue 
for a living figure : 

Ho there ! who art thou ? Answer me. — Art dumb ? 
' Warm from the hand of Daedalus I come ; 
My name Mercurius, and, as you may prove. 
A statue; but his statues speak and move.' 

The following lines on the tomb of Themistocles have a turn of elegant 
and pathetic simplicity in them, worthy of the exalted subject : 



THE TOMB OF THEMISTOCLES. 

By the sea's margin, on the watery strand, 
Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand. 
By this directed to thy native shore, 
The merchant shall convey his freighted store; 
And when our fleets are summon'd to the fight, 
Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight. 

The following fragment of a dialogue between a father and a sophist, 
under whose tuition he had placed his son, probably belonged either to 
the comedy of the JBeard, or to the Philosopher's Cloak. 

Fath. Thou hast destroyed the morals of my son, 
And turn'd his mind, not so disposed, to vice, 
Unholy pedagogue! With morning drams, 
A filthy custom which he caught from thee, 
Clean from his former practice, now he saps " 
His youthful vigor. It is thus you school him. 

Soph. And if I did, what harms him? Why complain you? 
He doel but follow what the wise prescribe, 
The great voluptuous law of Epicurus, 
Pleasure, the best of all good things on earth; 
And how but thus can pleasure be obtain'd? 

Fath. Virtue will give it him. 

Soph. And what but virtue 

Is our philosophy? When have you met 
One of our sect flush'd and disguised with wine ? 
Or one, but one of those you tax so roundly, 
On whom to fix a fault? 

Fath. Wot one, but all. 

All who march forth with supercilious brow, 
High arch'd with pride, beating the city rounds 
Like constables in quest of rogues and outlaws, 



344 PHERECRATES. [Lect. XIII. 

To find that prodigy in human nature, 

A wise and perfect man ! What is your science 

But kitchen science? wisely to descant 

Upon the choice bits of a savory carp, 

And prove by logic that his summum bonum 

Lies in his head; there you can lecture well, 

And whilst your gray beards wag, the gaping guest 

Sits wondering with a foolish face of praise. 



Pherecrates, the next comic poet of the old school to be noticed, was a 
native of Athens, and a contemporary of Plato and Aristophanes. He 
presented his first comedy to the public 438 A.C., and the last of which 
we have any knowledge 420 A.C. ; so that he flourished, as an author* 
for about twenty years. 

The character and genius of Pherecrates have descended to us with the 
warmest testimonials of high authority. His style was of that peculiar 
character which has been proverbially dignified as Most Attic. He 
acquired such reputation by his comedies and other poems, that the 
metre he used was called, by way of pre-eminence, ' the Pherecratian 
metre.' He was no less excellent in his private than in his poetical char- 
acter, and lived on the most intimate terms with Plato the philosopher, 
and other Athenians of equal eminence. As a comic writer his principal 
competitor seems to have been Crates, the actor and author of whom we 
have already spoken. 

According to Suidas, Pherecrates was the author of seventeen comedies, 
the titles of which are still extant. The Peasants, one of these, is men- 
tioned by Plato in his Protagoras ; and Clemens of Alexandria quotes a 
passage from his Deserters, of great elegance, in which the gods are in- 
troduced making their heavy complaints of the frauds practiced towards 
them by mankind, in their sacrifices and oblations. This poet also has a 
personal stroke at the. immoral character of Alcibiades. 

Having introduced a passage from Crates, the rival of Pherecrates, on 
old age, we shall now present one from the latter on the same subject, in 
order to show how these celebrated rivals expressed themselves on the 
same sentiment : 

ON OLD AGE. 

Age is the heaviest burden man can bear, 
Compound of disappointment, pain, and care ! 
For when the mind's experience comes at length, 
It comes to mourn the body's loss of strength. 
Resign'd to ignorance all our better days, 
Knowledge just ripens when the man decays ; 
One ray of light the closing eye receives, 
And wisdom only takes what folly leaves. 



460A.C.] PHERECRATES. 345 

Pherecrates entitled one of his comedies The Tyranny. It does not, 
however, appear what particular object he had in view under this title ; 
but from the following fragment, he seems to have levelled some share of 
his satire against women : 

Remark how wisely ancient art provides, 

The broad brimm'd cup, with flat expanded sides: 

A cup contrived for man's discreeter use, 

And sober potions of the generous juice ; 

But woman's more ambitious thirsty soul 

Soon long'd to revel in the plenteous bowl ; 

Deep and capacious as the swelling hold 

Of some stout bark, she shaped the hollow mould ; 

Then turning out a vessel like a tun, 

Simpering exclaim'd — Observe! I take but one! 

Athenseus has preserved the following curious and valuable fragment, 
from The Miners of this author. It is a very luxurious description of 
the riches and abundance of some former times to which he alludes, 
strongly dashed with comic strokes of wild extravagance and hyperbole. 
These miners were probably the chorus of the drama, which, doubtless, 
was of a satirical sort, and pointed at the luxuries of the rich. By the 
mention made of Plutus in the first line, we may suppose that these mines 
were of gold, and probably the god of that precious metal was one of the 
persons of the drama. 

FROM THE MINERS OF PHERECRATES. 

A. The days of Plutus were the days of gold ; 
The season of high feeding and good cheer : 
Rivers of goodly beef and brewis ran 

Boiling and bubbling through the steaming streets, 

"With islands of fat dumplings, cut in sops 

And slippery gobbets, moulded into mouthfuls 

That dead men might have swallowed; floating tripes 

And fleets of sausages in luscious morsels 

Stuck to the banks like oysters ; here and there, 

For relishes a salt fish, seasoned high 

Swam down the savory tide; when soon, behold! 

The portly gammon, sailing in full state 

Upon his smoking platter, heaves in sight, 

Encompass'd with his bandoliers like guards, 

And convoy'd by huge bowls of frumenty, 

That with their generous odors scent the air. 

B. You stagger me to tell of those good days, 
And yet to live with us on our hard fare, 
When death's a deed as easy as to drink. 

A. If your mouth waters now, what had it done, 
Could you have seen our delicate fine thrushes 
Hot from the spit, with myrtle-berries cramm'd, 



346 PHILONIDES. [Lect. XIII. 

And larded well with celandine and parsley, 
Bob at your hungry lips, crying — Come, eat me ! 
Nor was this all; for pendant over head 
The fairest, choicest fruits in clusters hung; 
Girls too, young girls, just budding into bloom, 
Clad in transparent vests, stood near at hand, 
To serve us with fresh roses and full cups 
Of rich and fragrant wine, of which one glass 
No sooner was dispatch'd, than, straight behold 
Two goblets, fresff and sparkling as the first, 
Provok'd us to repeat the increasing draught. 
Away then with your ploughs, we need them not, 
Your scythes, your sickles, and your pruning hooks! 
Away with all your trumpery at once ! 
Seed-time, and harvest home and vintage wakes — 
Your holidays are nothing worth to us. 
Our rivers roll with luxury, our vats 
O'erflow with nectar, which providing Jove 
Showers down by cataracts: the very gutters 
From our house-tops spout wine, vast forests wave 
Whose very leaves drop fatness, smoking viands 
Like mountains rise. All nature 's one great feast. 

Philonides was a native of Athens, but is better known as one of the 
two persons in whose names Aristophanes brought out some of his dramas, 
than as a poet. Before he became a dramatic writer, he had followed the 
trade of a fuller, according to Suidas ; but according to Eudocia, and 
which is more probable, he was a painter. Suidas mentions the title of 
three of his plays, one of which was aimed at Theramenes, whose party 
fickleness rendered him a fitting object of attack Aristophanes represents 
him as a very sillyj vulgar fellow, and illiterate to a proverb ; but there 
must evidently have been more satire than truth in this representation, 
otherwise the great poet could not have trusted him to present to the 
public such comedies as The Clouds, Tlie Frogs, and others of equal 
importance. 

The following short fragment of Philonides is all that we can find of 
his works ; and it is such a specimen as convinces us that we must not 
always take the character of a poet from a contemporary wit, engaged in 
the same studies. 

FRAGMENT. 

Because I hold the laws in due respect, 
And fear to be unjust, am I a coward? 
Meek let me be to all the friends of truth, 
And only terrible among its foes. 

A brief notice of the remaining comic poets of the Old School, but of 
whom, unfortunately, we have not even any fragmentary remains, will 



460A.C.] COMIC POETS. 347 

close our present remarks. These poets are Phrynichus, Ameipsias, 
Amphis, Hermippus, Hipparchus, and Theopompus. 

Phrynichus was a native of Athens, and the son of Eunomides. Ac- 
cording to Suidas, his first comedy was exhibited 435 A.C., but of the 
history of his life nothing more is known; for, the statement of an 
anonymous ancient writer, that he died in Sicily, refers, in all probability, 
to an early tragic poet of the same name. He was the author of ten 
comedies, of which the following were the titles : The Ephialtes, The 
Beard, Saturn, The Revellers, The Satyrs, The Tragedians, The Re- 
cluse, The Muses, T/ie Priest, and The Weeding Women. We have 
no other means than these titles to enable us to form any conjecture of 
the nature of the comedies themselves ; but they sufficiently indicate the 
subjects his satire pointed out to the spectators, in which the philosophers, 
as usual, had their full share. 

The style of Phrynichus was remarkable for its elegance and vigor ; 
and his genius, if we can depend upon the opinions of the ancient gram- 
marians, placed him among the most distinguished poets of the Old 
Comedy. Aristophanes, indeed, charges him with using low buffoonery, 
and he was charged by the comic poet Hermippus with corrupting both 
language and metre, and with plagiarism ; but these charges are probably 
to be regarded rather as indications of the height to which the rivalry of 
the comic poets was carried, than as the statement of actual truths. 
Phrynichus, it is true, invented a new metre, which he termed the Ionic 
a Minore Catalectic verse, and which afterwards bore his own name ; 
but his language, according to the celebrated grammarian, Didymus of 
Alexandria, was terse and elegant, though he sometimes used words of 
peculiar formation. 

Ameipsias was also a native of Athens, and was a comic poet of such 
exalted genius, as to have triumphed in the contest with Aristophanes, 
when the latter presented for the trial two of his most important plays — 
1 The Clouds,' and ' The Birds.' We have the titles of ten of his come- 
dies ; and though in some of them the satire was personal, yet, in all, it 
seems to have been levelled against the reigning vices of his time, rather 
than against particular individuals. In The Beard, he inveighed against 
the hypocrisy and affectation of the priests and the philosophers. In 
The Sappho, the morals of many of the prominent women of Athens 
were exposed ; and in The Philosopher } s Cloak, he is understood to have 
glanced pretty severely at Socrates. To these we may add The Game- 
sters, The Glutton, The Adulterers, and The Purse — names which suffi- 
ciently indicate the tone of the comedies founded upon them. 

Amphis, the son of Amphicrates, was another Athenian comic poet of 



348 COMIC POETS. [Lect. XIII. 

great celebrity. We have the titles of twenty-one of his comedies, and 
he probably wrote many more. By these titles it appears evident that 
he wrote in the satirical vein of the Old Comedy, and one of his plays 
contained a personal stroke at his contemporary, Plato the philosopher. 
One of his plays, entitled The Seven Chiefs against Thebes, was probably 
a parody upon JEschylus ; and if so, this proves that it was written while 
the personal drama was suspended. The Dicers, The Drunkards, The 
Gamesters, The Courtezans, The Parasites, and other plays with simi- 
lar titles, were aimed at the prevailing vices which they named, and re- 
proved them with great moral severity. Two of his comedies were 
entitled Women's Dove and Women's Tyranny, and their purport may 
be easily inferred. 

Hermippus was the son of Lysis, a native Athenian, and brother of 
Myrtilus, another comic poet, of whom, however, very little is known. 
Hermippus was rather older than Aristophanes, though his precise aera 
cannot be fixed. His personal satire seems to have been extremely bit- 
ter, and he vehemently attacked Pericles on his connection with the be- 
ginning of the Peloponnesian war. He also exposes his dissolute morals 
in relation to Aspasia ; and in one of his plays he calls him King of 
the Satyrs, advising him to assume the proper attributes of his lascivious 
character. According to Suidas, he was the author of forty comedies, 
the titles of only nine of which have, however, been preserved. 

Hipparchus, another of these brilliant contemporary authors of the 
Old Comedy, was a native of Athens ; but of his history nothing of any 
importance is now known. Suidas simply remarks, that ' his dramas 
were about marriages,' but gives us no key to their character, farther 
than to enumerate three of their titles. 

Theopompus, the son of Theodectes, is represented by his contempo- 
raries as a man of excellent moral character ; and though he was long 
afflicted with a defluxion in his eyes, which removed him from his studies, 
still time has preserved the titles of twenty-four of his comedies. He 
was, according to Suidas, a contemporary of Aristophanes ; but the titles 
of his plays give evidence that he wrote during the latest period of the 
Old Comedy, and during the Middle Comedy, as late as 380 A.C. Of 
his personal history we have no information, except a story of a fabulous 
appearance, respecting his being cured of the defluxion in his eyes, by 
iEsculapius. This story Suidas copies from iElian, with a description 
of a statuary in Parian marble, which was made in commemoration of 
the cure, and which represented Theopompus lying on a couch, by the 
side of which the god stood, handing medicine to the poet, while a boy 
was watching on the opposite side of the couch. Though this story may 



444A.C.] COMIC POETS. 349 

have no foundation in truth, yet the care with which it has evidently 
been preserved, goes to show the high estimation in which Theopompus 
was held. 

Having, in our present remarks, embraced all the distinguished poets 
of the Old Comedy excepting Aristophanes, we shall, in the next lecture, 
fully investigate the life, genius, and writings of that prince of the comic 
school to which he belonged, and of which he was, incomparably, the 
brightest ornament. 



ttttuxt tju /nurtntitjj 



ARISTOPHANES. 

THE comedies of Aristophanes are universally regarded as the standard 
of Attic writing in its greatest purity. If we, therefore, wish to ob- 
tain a knowledge of the Greek language, as it was spoken by Pericles, we 
must seek it in the scenes of this distinguished poet's dramas. Fortu- 
nately for us, that while the gulf of time has completely swallowed up 
all the comic dramas of his contemporaries, with the exception of a few 
scattered fragments, it has spared of his works eleven complete plays. 
They are, therefore, not only valuable as his remains ; but when we con- 
sider them as the only remaining specimens of the Greek comedy, their 
value becomes inestimably greater. We receive them as treasures thrown 
up from a wreck, or more properly as one passenger escaped out of a 
fleet, whose narrative we listen to with the more eagerness and curiosity, 
because it is from this alone we can gain intelligence of the nature of the 
expedition, the quality of the armament, and the characters and talents 
of the commanders, who have perished and gone down into the abyss to- 
gether. 

The genius of Aristophanes was vast, versatile, and original ; and his 
knowledge of human nature surpassed by Homer and Shakspeare alone. 
He uniformly varies and accommodates his style to his subject, and to 
the speakers in the scene. On some occasions it is elevated, grave, sub- 
lime, and polished to a wonderful degree of brilliancy and beauty ; while 
on others, it sinks and descends into humble dialogue, provincial rusticity, 
coarse obscenity, and even puns and quibbles. The versatility too, of his 
genius, is admirable ; for, in his varied scenes he gives us every rank and 
condition of men, and in every one he is strictly characteristic. In some 
passages, and frequently in his choruses, he soars beyond the ordinary 
province of comedy, into the loftiest flights of poetry ; and in these he is 
scarcely surpassed by either iEschylus or Pindar. In sentiment and 
good sense he is not inferior to Euripides ; and in the acuteness of his 
criticisms no poet of antiquity equalled him. 



352 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

In the general tone of his morals, and their purport, Aristophanes 
seldom, if ever, fails ; but he works occasionally with unclean tools, and 
chastises vice by an open exposure of its turpitude — offending the ear, 
whilst he aims to mend the heart. This habit of plain speaking, it must, 
however, be remembered was the fashion of the times in which he lived, 
and the audience demanded and would have it ; but when we are told 
that he was the pillow-companion of Chrysostom, one of the most eminent 
of the early Christian saints, the conviction is irresistible, that he may 
be studied, without injury, by the purest minds. It may also be re- 
marked that much of the indelicacy of his muse, is attributable to the 
public taste of the age ; for nothing is more evident than that a dramatic 
poet cannot model his audience, but, to a certain extent, must necessarily 
conform to their humor and fancy. Aristophanes himself often lamented 
the hard task imposed upon him of gratifying the public at the expense 
of decency ; but with the example of the poet Cratinus before him, who 
was driven from the stage because he scrupled to amuse the public ear 
with tawdry jests, it is not to be wondered at, that an author, emulous 
of applause, should have fallen in with the wishes of the theatre, unbe- 
coming as they were. In palliation of this fault, we may farther remark, 
that Aristophanes always confines his obscenity to the mouths of obscene 
characters, and so supplies it as to give his hearers a disgust for such un- 
seemly habits. We are free to confess that morality deserves a purer 
vehicle than this ; yet his purpose was evidently honest, and no doubt 
went farther towards reforming the loose Athenians, than all the inde- 
cisive positions of the philosophers of the period, who, being divided into 
sects and factions, scarcely agreed in any one common moral principle. 

The wit of Aristophanes is of various kinds. Much of it is local, per- 
sonal, and untransferable to posterity ; and though no other author still 
retains so many brilliant passages, yet none has suffered such injury by 
the depredations of time. Of his powers in ridicule and humor, whether 
of character or dialogue, instances innumerable might be given ; and his 
satire, whether levelled against the vices and follies of the people at 
large, against the corruption of the demagogues, the turpitude and chi- 
canery of the philosophers, or the arrogant self sufficiency of the tragic 
poets, cuts with an edge that penetrates the character, and leaves no shel- 
ter for either ignorance or criminality. 

Aristophanes was the son of Philippus, and was born in the city of 
Athens about 444 A.C. He was educated with much care, and is said 
to have been a pupil of Prodicus, though this is improbable, as he speaks 
of him in rather contemptuous terms. He devoted himself to the comic 
drama from his youth, and presented his first comedy to the public 427 
A.C., when he had scarcely attained the seventeenth year of his age. 
From this period until his death, which occurred about 380 A.C., he was 



444A.C] ARISTOPHANES. 353 

constantly before the public as an author, and was, perhaps, the most 
popular man in all Athens. Of his private history we know very little, 
farther than that he was a lover of pleasure, and frequently spent whole 
nights in drinking and witty conversation. Accusations more than one, 
says an anonymous biographer, were brought against him by Cleon, with 
a view to deprive him of his civic rights ; but as they were merely the 
fruits of revenge for the attacks of the poet on that demagogue, they were 
always unsuccessful. They have, however, given rise to all those tradi- 
tions which deprive him of the honor of Athenian citizenship, and make 
him a native of Khodes, of Egypt, of iEgina, of Camirus, or of Nau- 
cratis. 

The comedies of Aristophanes contain an admirable series of carica- 
tures on the leading men of the day, and a contemporary commentary on 
the evils existing at Athens. In this view they are of the highest histor- 
ical interest. Aristophanes was a bold and often a wise patriot. He had 
the strongest affection for Athens, and longed to see her restored to the 
state in which she was flourishing in the previous generation, and almost 
in his own childhood, before Pericles became the head of the government, 
and when the age of Miltiades and Aristides had but just passed away. 
The first great evil of his own time against which he inveighs, is the Pelo- 
ponnesian war, which he regards as the work of Pericles, and even 
attributes it to his fear of punishment for having connived at the robbery 
said to have been committed by Phidias on the statue of Athene in the 
Parthenon, and to the influence of Aspasia. To this fatal war, among a 
host of other evils, he ascribes the influence of vulgar demagogues like 
Cleon at Athens, of which also the example was set by the more refined 
demagogism of Pericles himself. 

Another great object of the indignation of Aristophanes was the re- 
cently-adopted system of education which had been introduced by the 
Sophists, acting on the speculative and inquiring turn given to the Athe- 
nian mind by the Ionian and Eleatic philosophers, and the extraordinary 
intellectual development of the age following the Persian war. The new 
theories introduced by the Sophists threatened to overthrow the founda- 
tions of morality, by making persuasion, and not truth, the object of man 
in his intercourse with his fellows, and to substitute a universal scepticism 
for the religious creed of the people. The worst effects of such a system 
were seen in Alcibiades, vho, caring for nothing but his own ambition, 
valuing eloquence only for its worldly advantages, and possessed of great 
talents which he utterly misapplied, combined all the elements which 
Aristophanes most disliked, heading the war party in politics, and pro- 
tecting the sophistical school in philosophy and also in literature. Of 
this latter school — the literary and political Sophists — Euripides was the 
chief, whose works are so full of that scepticism which contrasts so offen- 
sively with the moral dignity of JEschylus and Sophocles, and for which 

23 



354 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

Aristophanes introduces Mm as soaring in the clouds to write his trage- 
dies, caricaturing thereby his own account of himself. 

Another feature of the times was the excessive love of litigation at 
Athens, the consequent importance of the dicasts, and disgraceful abuse 
of their power — all of which enormities are made by Aristophanes ob- 
jects of continual attack. But though he saw with a keen eye what were 
the evils of his time, he could find no other remedy for them than the 
hopeless and undesirable one of a movement backwards ; and, therefore, 
though we allow him to have been honest and bold, he did not possess 
that political sagacity which would have constituted him a great states- 
man. 

Aristophanes was, perhaps, the most voluminous writer of all the au- 
thors of the Old Comedy. The number of his dramas, according to 
Suidas, was fifty-four, of which eighteen titles have been preserved, and 
eleven entire plays. The Banqueters, the first of his comedies, was pro- 
duced 427 A.C., and brought upon the stage by Philonides, Aristophanes 
not having yet attained the legal age for competing for a prize. Tlie 
Babylonians and The Acharnians were produced in the two following 
years — the latter being brought out by Callistratus. In 424 A.C. ap- 
peared The Knights — the first play produced in the name of Aristophanes 
himself; and in the two following years The Clouds and The Wasps. 
From this period the dates of Aristophanes' plays are more irregular, 
though they were presented to the public in the following order : — Peace, 
Amphiaraus, T/ie Birds, Lysistrata, Tliesmophoriazusce, First Plutus 
Tlie Frogs, Ecclesiazusce, and the Second Plutus — the last being repre- 
sented 388 A.C. The two last comedies of Aristophanes were the 
JEolosicon and Cocalus, and were produced about 387 A.C. by Araros, 
one of his sons. 

In the Banqueters the object of Aristophanes was to contemn generally 
the abandonment of those ancient manners and feelings which it was the 
labor of his life to restore. He attacked the modern scheme of educa- 
tion by introducing a father with two sons, one of whom had been edu- 
cated according to the old system, the other in the sophistries of later 
days. The chorus consisted of a party who had been feasting in the tem- 
ple of Hercules ; and Bishop Thirlwall supposes, that as the play was 
written when the plague was at its height, the poet recommended a return 
to the gymnastic exercises of which that god was the patron, and to the 
old system of education, as the means most likely to prevent its continu- 
ance. 

In the Babylonians, we are told, that the author l attacked the system 
of appointing to offices by lot.' The chorus consisted of barbarian slaves 
employed in a mill, which Rankc has conjectured was represented as 
belonging to the demagogue Eucrates, who united the trade of a miller 



444A.C.] ARISTOPHANES. 355 

with that of a vender of tow. Cleon, also, must have been a main object 
of the poet's satire,. and probably the public functionaries of the day in 
general, since an action was brought by Cleon against Callistratus, in 
whose name, as before observed, it was produced, accusing him of ridicul- 
ing the government in the presence of the allies. The attack, however, 
appears to have been entirely unsuccessful. 

The Acharnians is the earliest of Aristophanes' extant dramas. Com- 
pared with most of his other plays this is entirely harmless. Its chief 
object is to depict the earnest longing for a peaceful country life on the 
•part of those Athenians who took no pleasure in the babbling of the mar- 
ket-place, and had been driven into the city against their will by the mil- 
itary plans of Pericles. Occasional lashes were administered to the 
demagogues, who, like Cleon, had inflamed the martial propensities of 
the people, and to the generals, who, like Lamachus, had shown far too 
great a love for the war. "We have also in this play an early specimen 
of Aristophanes' literary criticism, directed against Euripides, whose 
over-wrought attempts to move the feelings, and the vulgar shrewdness 
with which he had invested the old heroes, were highly offensive to our 
poet. 

In this drama we have at once all the peculiarities of the x\ristophanic 
comedy : — his bold and genial originality, the lavish abundance of highly- 
comic scenes, with which he has filled every part of his piece, the surpris- 
ing and striking delineation of character which expresses a great deal 
with a few master-touches, the vivid and plastic power with which the 
scenes are arranged, and the ease with which he has disposed of all diffi- 
culties of space and time. As this play possesses its author's peculiar char- 
acteristics in such perfection and completeness, and as it is the oldest ex- 
tant comedy, it may be proper in this place to give such an analysis of it, 
as may serve to illustrate not merely the general ideas, which we have 
already given, but also the whole plot and technical arrangement of the 
drama. In this analysis we follow Midler. 

The stage in this play represents sometimes town and sometimes coun- 
try, and was probably so arranged that both were shown upon it at once. 
When the comedy begins, the stage gives us a glimpse of the Pnyx, a 
place of public assembly, that is to say, the spectator saw the bema for 
the orator cut out of a rock, and around it some seats and other objects 
calculated to recall the recollection of the well-known place. Here sits 
the worthy Dicasopolis, a citizen of the old school, grumbling about his 
fellow- citizens, who do not come punctually to the Pnyx, but lounge idly 
about the market-place, which is seen from thence ; for his own part, al- 
though he has no love for a town-life, with its bustle and gossip, he 
attends the assembly regularly in order to speak for peace. On a sudden 
the Prytanes come out of the council-house ; the people rush in ; a well- 



356 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

born Athenian, Ainphitheus, who boasts of having been destined by the 
gods to conclude a peace with Sparta, is dismissed with the utmost con- 
tempt, in spite of the efforts of Dicseopolis in his behalf; and then, to the 
great delight of the war party, ambassadors are introduced, who have re- 
turned from Persia, and have brought with them a Persian messenger, 
' tie Great King's eye,' with his retinue : this forms a fantastic procession, 
which, as Aristophanes hints, is all a trick and imposture, got up by the 
demagogues of the war party. Other ambassadors bring a similar mes- 
senger from Sitalus, King of Thrace, on whose assistance the Athenians 
of the day built a great deal, and drag before the assembly a miserable 
rabble, under the name of picked Odomantian troops, which the Athe- 
nians are to take into their service for very high pay. Meanwhile, Di- 
cseopolis, seeing that he cannot turn affairs into another channel, has sent 
Amphitheus to Sparta on his own account ; the messenger returns in a 
few minutes with various treaties, some for a longer, others for a shorter 
time, in the form of wine-jars, like those which were used for pouring out 
libations on the conclusion of a treaty of peace ; Dicaeopolis selects a 
thirty years' truce by sea and land, which does not smell of pitch and tar, 
like a short armistice in which there is only just time to calk the ships. 
All these delightful scenes are possible only in comedy like that of Aris- 
tophanes, which has its outward form for the representation of every, 
relation, every function, and every character; which is able to sketch 
everything in bold colors by means of grotesque speaking figures, and 
does not trouble itself with confining the activity of these figures to the 
laws of reality and the probabilities of actual life. 

The first dramatic complication which Aristophanes introduces into his 
]}lot, arises from the chorus, which consists of Acharnians, that is, the 
inhabitants of a large village of Attica, where the people gained a liveli- 
hood chiefly by charcoal-burning, the materials for which were supplied 
by the neighboring mountain-forests. They are represented as rude, 
robust old fellows, hearts of oak, martial by their disposition, and espe- 
cially incensed against the Peloponnesians, who had destroyed all the 
vineyards in their first invasion of Attica, These old Acharnians at first 
appear in pursuit of Amphitheus, who, they hear, has gone to Sparta to 
bring treaties of peace. In his stead they fall in with Dicseopolis, who is 
engaged in celebrating the festival of the country Dionysia, here repre- 
sented as an abstract of every sort of rustic merriment and jollity, from 
which the Athenians at that time were debarred. The chorus no sooner 
learns from the phallus-song of Dicseopolis, that he is the person who has 
sent for the treaties, than they fall upon him in the greatest rage, refuse 
to hear a word from him, and are going to stone him to death without 
the least compunction, when Dicseopolis seizes a charcoal-basket, and 
threatens to punish it as a hostage for all that the Acharnians do to him- 
self. The charcoal-basket, which the Acharnians needed for their every- 
day occupations, is so dear to their hearts that they are willing, for its 



444A.C] AKISTOPHANES. 357 

sake, to listen to Dicseopolis ; especially as lie has promised to speak, 
with his head on a block, on condition that he shall be beheaded at once 
if he fails in his defence. All this is amusing enough in itself, but be- 
comes additionally ludicrous when we remember that the whole of 
Dicseopolis's behavior is an imitation of one of the heroes of Euripides, 
the rhetorical and plaintive Telephus, who snatched the infant Orestes 
from his cradle, and threatened to put him to death, unless Agamemnon 
would listen to him, and was exposed to the same danger, when he spoke 
before the Achseans, as Dicseopolis is when he argues with the Achar- 
nians. 

Aristophanes pursues this parody still farther, as it furnishes him with 
the means of exaggerating the situation of Dicseopolis in a very comic 
manner ; Dicseopolis applies to Euripides himself, who is shown to the 
spectators by means of an eccyclema, in his garret, surrounded by masks 
and costumes, such as he was fond of employing for his tragic heroes, and 
begs of him the most piteous of his dresses, upon which he obtains the 
most deplorable of them all,— that of Telephus. We pass over other 
mockeries of Euripides, in which Aristophanes indulges from pure wan- 
tonness, and turD to the following scene — one of the chief scenes in the 
fece — in which Dicseopolis, in the character of a comic Telephus, and 
?.th his head over the block, pleads for peace with the Spartans. It is 
'obvious that, however serious Aristophanes embraces the cause of the 
peace party, he does not, on this occasion, speak one word in serious 
earnest. He derives the whole Peloponnesian war from a bold frolic on 
the part of some drunken young men, who had carried off a harlot from 
Megara, in reprisal for which the Megarians had seized on some of the 
attendants of Aspasia. As this explanation is not satisfactory, and the 
chorus even summons to its assistance the warlike Lamachus, who rushes 
from his house in extravagant military costume, Dicseopolis is driven to 
have recourse to argumentum ad ho?ninem, and he impresses on the old 
people who form the chorus, that they are obliged to serve as common 
soldiers, while young braggadocios, like Lamachus, made a pretty liveli- 
hood by serving as generals and ambassadors, and so wasted the fat of 
the land. This produces its effect, and the chorus shows an inclination 
to do justice to Dicseopolis. This catastrophe of the piece is followed by 
the parabasis, in the first part of which the poet, with particular reference 
to his last play, takes credit to himself for being an estimable friend to 
the people ; he says that he does not indeed spare them, but that they 
need not fear, for that he will be just in his satire. The second part, 
however, keeps close to the thought which Dicseopolis had awakened in 
the minds of the chorus ; they complained bitterly of the assumption of 
their rights by the clever, witty, and ready young men, from whom they 
could not defend themselves, especially in the law courts. 

The second part of the piece, after the catastrophe and parabasis, is 



358 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

merely a description, overflowing with wit and humor, of the blessings 
which peace has conferred on the sturdy Dicaeopolis. At first he opens 
his free market, which is visited in succession by a poor starving wretch 
from Megara, the neighboring country to Attica, which, poorly gifted by 
nature, had suffered in the most shocking manner from the Athenian 
blockade and by a yearly devastation of its territory, and by a stout 
Boeotian from the fertile land on the shore of the Copaic lake, which was 
well known to the Athenians for its eels. For want of other wares the 
Megarian has dressed up his little daughters like young pigs, and the honest 
Dicaeopolis is willing to buy them as such, though he is strangely sur- 
prised by some of their peculiarities — a purely ludicrous scene, which was 
based, perhaps, on the popular jokes of the Athenians ; a Megarian would 
gladly sell his children as little pigs if any one would take them off his 
hands : we could point out many jokes of this kind in the popular life, 
as well of ancient as of modern times. During this, the dealers are much 
troubled by sycophants, a race who lived by indictments,, and were espe- 
cially active in hunting for violations of the customs' laws. They want to 
seize on the foreign goods, as contraband, but Dicaeopolis makes short 
work with them. One of the sycophants he drives away from his market ; 
the other, the little Hicarchus, he binds up in a bundle, and packs him 
on the back of the Boeotian, who shows a desire to take him away as a 
laughable little monkey. 

Now begins, on a sudden, the Athenian feast of the pitchers. Lama- 
chus in vain sends to Dicaeopolis for some of his purchases, in order that 
he may keep the feast merrily ; but the good citizen keeps everything to 
himself, and the chorus, which is now quite converted, admires the pru- 
dence of Dicaeopolis, and the happiness he has gained by it. In the 
midst of his preparations for a sumptuous banquet, others beg for some 
share of his peace ; he returns a gruff answer to a countryman, whose 
cattle have been harried by the Boeotians ; but he behaves a little more 
civilly to a bride who wants to keep her husband at home. Meanwhile, 
various messages are brought — to Lamachus, that he must march against 
the Boeotians, who are going to make an inroad into Attica, at the time 
of the feast of the Choes — to Dicaeopolis, that he must go to the priest 
of Bacchus, in order to assist him in celebrating the feast of Choes. Aris- 
tophanes works out this contrast in a very amusing manner, by making 
Dicaeopolis parody every word which Lamachus utters as he is preparing 
for war, so as to transfer it to his own festivities ; and when, after a short 
time which the chorus fills up by a satirical song, Lamachus is brought 
back from the war wounded, and supported by two servants — Dicaeopolis 
meets him in a happy state of intoxication, and leaning on the arms of 
two young females, and so celebrates his triumphs over the wounded war- 
rior in a very conspicuous manner. 

To say nothing of the pithy humor of the style, and the beautiful 



444 AC.] ARISTOPHANES. 359 

rhythms and happy turns of the choral songs, it must be allowed that this 
series of scenes has been devised with genial merriment from beginning 
to end, and that they must have produced a highly comic effect, especially 
if the scenery, costumes, dances, and music were worthy of the conceptions 
and language of the poet. The piece, if correctly understood, is nothing 
but a Bacchic revelry, full of farce and wantonness ; for although the 
conception of it may rest upon a moral foundation, yet the author is, 
throughout the piece, utterly devoid of seriousness and sobriety, and in 
every representation, as well of the victorious as of the defeated party, 
follows the impulses of an unrestrained love of truth. At most, Aris- 
tophanes expresses his own sentiments in the parabasis : in the other 
parts of the play we cannot safely recognize the opinions of the poet in 
the deceitful mirror of his comedy. 

To this extended analysis of this important play, we add the following 
brief quotation. It is the last act, and the closing scene of the drama. 

ACT FIFTH.— SCENE FIRST. 
Enter a servant of Lamachus. 

Ser. Domestics of the house of Lamachus, 
Some water, water in a pipkin warm, 
Your linen rags, and sere cloths, too, prepare, 
Some wool unwash'd, and bandage for the ankle — 
A man, in leaping o'er a ditch, has been 
Hurt by a stake, and, bending back his ankle, 
Hath dislocated it. His head he broke 
Falling upon a stone, and from his shield 
Batter'd the gorgon — while the mighty crest 
Of this vain boaster, fallen upon the rocks, 
He spoke a mournful strain — '0 glorious sight, 
Now for the last time seen, I quit your ray, 
Together with my life.' Thus having said, 
He rises from the gutter, and some thieves 
Encountering in their flight, with his bold spear 
He drives and thrusts them forward. — Lo ! himself— 
Open the door. 

Enter Lamachus, out of breath. 

Lam. Attatai, attatai, 

These sharp cold pangs ! unhappy that I am ; 
I perish, wounded by a hostile spear — 
And that's a lamentable grief to me ; 
For, if beheld by Dicseopolis, 
How my calamities will be derided! 

Enter Dicseopolis, as not perceiving Lamachus addressing two Courtezans. 

Die. Attatai, attalattatse ! those breasts 
Swelling with quince's hard protuberance! 



360 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

Enfold me, beauties, -with a wanton kiss ; 
For I have swallow'd my libation first. 

Lam. wretched chance of woes ! painful wounds ! 

Die. All hail, knight Lamachus ! 

Lam. wretched me ! 

Die. I labor too with grief. 

Lam. "Why moek'st thou me? 

Die. Why dost thou bite me? 

Lam. "What a heavy cost 

Of war have I sustain'd ! 

Die. Has any one 

His reckoning paid at the libation feast? 

Lam. Paeon, Paeon! 

Die. But this present day 

We hold not the Paeonian festival. 

Lam. Support my legs, friends ! 

Die. And you, my dears, 

Hold me in the same way. 

Lain. Struck by a stone, 

My dizzy head turns round, as with vertigo. 

Die. And fain would I upon the bed recline, 
Urg'd to the deed of darkness. 

Lam. Carry me 

To seek the healing aid of Pettilus. 

Die. Bear me before the judges. "Where's the king ? 
Restore my bottle. 

Lam. An afflicting spear 

Strikes through my bones. 

Die. Behold this empty jug — 

Hurrah, victorious ! 

Cho. And hurrah again, 

Triumphant old man, since thou callest out. 

Die. Pure wine, moreover, pour'd into the cup, 
I at a single draught have swallow'd down. 

Cho. Hurrah, thou generous man — go take thy bottle. 

Die. Come,* fellow, shouting the triumphant strain. 

Cho. Yes, we will follow — and our song shall be, 
Thou with the sack, thy prize of victory. 

The Knights presents a remarkable contrast to the Acharnians. It is 
by far the most violent and angry production of the Aristophanic Muse- 
that which has most of the bitterness of Archilochus, and least of the 
harmless humor and riotous merriment of the Dionysia. In this instance 
comedy almost transgresses its proper limits : it is almost converted into 
an arena for political champions fighting for life and death : the most 
violent party animosity is combined with some obvious traces of per- 
sonal irritation, which is justified by the judicial persecution of the author 
of the Babylonians. The number of characters is small and unpretend- 
ing. The whole dramatis persona consists of an old master with three 
slaves, (one of whom, a Paphlagonian, completely governs his master,) 
and a sausage-seller. 



444A.C] ARISTOPHANES. 361 

The old master, however, is the Demus of Athens, the slaves are the 
Athenian generals Nicias and Demostlienes,- and the Paphlagonian is 
Cleon. The sausage -seller alone is a fiction of the poet's — a rude, un- 
educated, impudent fellow, from the dregs of the people, who is set up 
against Cleon in order that he may, by his audacity, bawl down Cleon's 
impudence, and so drive the formidable demagogue out of the field in the 
only way that is possible. Even the chorus has nothing imaginary about 
it, but consists of the Knights of the State, that is, of citizens who, ac- 
cording to Solon's classification, paid taxes according to the rating of a 
Knight's property, and most of whom, at the same time, still served as 
cavalry in time of war. Being the most numerous portion of the wealthier 
and better-educated class, they could not fail to have a decided antipathy 
to Cleon, who had put himself at the head of the mechanics and poorer 
people. 

We see that in this piece Aristophanes lays all the stress on the 
political tendency, and considers the comic plot rather as the form and 
dress, than as the body and primary part of his play. The allegory, 
which is obviously chosen merely to cover the sharpness of the attack, is 
cast over it only like a thin veil, according to his own pleasure ; the poet 
speaks of the affairs of the Demus sometimes as a matter of family 
arrangement, and sometimes as public transactions. The whole piece 
has the form of a contest. The sausage-seller, in whom an oracle, which 
has been stolen from the Paphlagonian while he was sleeping, recognizes 
his victorious opponent, first measures his strength against him in a dis- 
play of impudence and rascality, by which the poet assumes that of the 
qualities requisite to the demagogue these are the most essential. The 
sausage-seller narrates that having, while a boy, stolen a piece of meat 
and boldly denied the theft, a statesman had predicted that the city 
would one day trust itself to his guidance. After the parabasis, the 
contest begins afresh. The rivals, who had in the meantime endeavored 
to recommend themselves to the council, come before Demus himself, 
who takes his seat on the Pnyx, and sue for the favor of the childish old 
man. Combined with serious reproaches directed against Cleon's whole 
system of policy, we have a number of joking contrivances, as when the 
sausage-seller places a cushion under the Demus, in order that he may 
not gall that which sat by the oar at Salamis. 

The contest at last turns upon the oracles, to which Cleon used to ap- 
peal in his public speeches. In this department, too, the sausage-seller 
outbids his rival by producing announcements of the greatest comfort to 
the Demus, and ruin to his opponent. As a merry supplement to these 
long- spun transactions, we have a scene which must have been highly en- 
tertaining to eye and ear alike : the Paphlagonian and the sausage- seller 
sit down as eating-house keepers at two tables, on which a number of 
hampers and eatables are set out, and bring one article after another to 
the Demus with ludicrous recommendations of their excellency. In this, 



362 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

too, the sausage-seller, of course, pays his court to the Demus more suc- 
cessfully than his rival. After a second parabasis we see the Demus — 
•whom the sausage-seller has restored to youth, by boiling him in his 
kettle, as Medea did iEson — in youthful beauty, but attired in the old- 
fashioned splendid costume, shining with peace and contentment, and in 
his new state of mind heartily ashamed of his former absurdities. 

At the very time when Aristophanes produced this comedy, Cleon's 
reputation was at its height ; for fortune, in one of her strange freaks, 
had realized his inconsiderate boast, that it would be an easy matter for 
him to capture the Spartans in Sphacteria. Hence, when the poet en- 
deavored to obtain a mask of Cleon, he could find no mask-maker of 
sufficient boldness to construct one for him ; much less could he find an 
actor willing to personate the character. Nothing daunted, however, he 
colored his own face appropriately, and performed the character himself. 
The features of this play are so distinctly marked, that we much regret 
our space will allow us to make the following brief extract only : — 



Scene Foue,th. 

JYicias, Demosthenes, Cleon, Sausage-seller, and Clwrus. 

CHORUS OF KNIGHTS. 

Stripes and torment, whips and scourges, for the toll-collecting knave! 

Knighthood wounded, troops confounded, chastisement and vengeance crave. 

Taxes sinking, tributes shrinking, mark his appetite for plunder; 

At his craw and ravening maw, dykes and whirlpools fail for wonder ! 

Explanation and evasion — covert act and close deceit — 

Fraudful funning, force and cunning, who with him in these compete? 

He can cheat and eke repeat twenty times his felon feat, 

All before yon blessed sun has quenched his lamp of glowing heat. 

Then to him — pursue him — strike, shiver and hew him; 

Confound him and bound him, and storm all around him. 

Confounded by this attack, Cleon calls loudly on the members of the 
high court of Athenian judicature for help — 

Judges, jurymen, or pleaders, ye whose soul is in your fee; 

Ye, that in a three-piec'd obol, father, mother, brother, see; 

Ye whose food I'm still providing, straining voice through right and wrong — 

Mark and see — conspiracy drives and buffets me along ? 

Ch. 'Tis with reason— 'tis in season — 'tis as you yourself have done : 
Thou fang, thou claw, — thou gulf, thou maw, — yielding partage fair to none. 
"Where's the officer at audit, but has felt your cursed gripe? 
Squeez'd and tried with nice discernment, whether yet the wretch be ripe. 
Like the men our figs who gather, you are skilful to discern 
"Which is green, and which is ripe, and which is just upon the turn. 



444A.C.] ARISTOPHANES. 363 

Is there one well-purs'd amongst us, lamb-like in heart and life, 
Link'd and wedded to retirement, hating bus'ness, hating strife? 
Soon your greedy eye's upon him — when his mind is least at home, — 
Room and place — from farthest Thrace, at your bidding he must come, 
Foot and hand are straight upon him — neck and shoulder in your grip. 
To the ground anon he's thrown, and you smite him on the hip. 

Cleon. (fawning.) HI from you comes this irruption, you for whom my cares 
provide, 
To reward old deeds of valor, — stone and monumental pride. 
'Twas my purpose to deliver words and speech to that intent — 
And for such my good intention, must I be thus tempest-rent ? 

Ch. Fawning braggart, proud deceiver, yielding like a pliant thong! 
"We are not old men to cozen and to gull with lying tongue. 
Fraud or force — assault or parry — at all points will we pursue thee : 
And the course which first exalted, knave, that same shall now undo thee. 

Cleon. (to the audience.) Town and weal — I make appeal — back and breast 
these monsters feel. 

Ch. Have we wrung a clamor from thee, pest and ruin of the town? 

Sausage. Clamor as he will, I'll raise a voice that shall his clamor drown. 

Ch. To outreach this knave in speech were a great and glorious feat — 
But to pass in face and brass — that were triumph all complete. 

Cleon. (to the audience.) Allegation, affirmation, I am here prepared to make, 
That this man (pointing to sausage-seller) shipp'd spars and sausages, and all for 
Sparta's sake. 

Sausage. Head and oath, I stake them both, and free before this presence say, 
That the hall a guest most hungry sees in this man (pointing to Cleon) every day : 
He walks in with belly empty and with full one goes away. 

Demus. Add to this, on my witness, that in covert close disguise, 
Of fish, and flesh, and bread most fragrant, he makes there unlawful prize; 
Pericles, in all his grandeur, ne'er was gifted in such guise. 

Cleon. (loudly.) Fate had mark'd you with her eye : 
Yet awhile, and both must die. 

Sausage, (louder.) Pitch your voice, knave, as you will, 
I'll that voice out-clamor still. 

Cleon. (crescendo.) When I soar, the ocean's roar 
Fails for very wonder. 

Sausage. In my throat I've but one note, 
And that note is — thunder. (Very loud.) 

Cleon. I have test your parts to try : 
Look at me, nor wink your eye. 

Sausage. Be your challenge on your head: (Looks without winking) 
"Where suppose ye I was bred ? 

Cleon. I can steal, and, matchless grace ! 
Own it with unblushing face; 
You dare not thus pursue it. 

Sausage. Empty boasting, void as air 
I can steal, and then outswear 
The man who saw me do it. 

Cleon. (mortified.) Small applause your feats demand; 
The art, 'tis known, 
Is not your own; 
You're but a knave at second hand. 



364 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

But to the hall anon I go ; 
Incontinent our chairmen know 
You've intestines here which owe 
A tjthe to Jove and heaven. 

Ch. Wretch! without a parallel, — 

Son of thunder, — child of hell, — 

Creature of one mighty sense, 

Concentrated Impudence ! — 

From earth's centre to the sea, 

Nature stinks of that and thee. 

Ik stalks at the bar, 

It lurks at the tolls; 

In th' assembly, black war ' ■ 

And defiance it rolls, "-' * ■- = 

It speaks to our ears *■ 

In an accent of thunder, 

It climbs to the spheres 

And rives heaven asunder. 



This storm is kept up so loudly and incessantly, that Creon finally 
throws himself upon the senate, and challenges his rival to meet him at 
that awful bar. Sausage professes his willingness to do so ; and the Cho- 
rus, considering him as one of the combatants who were going to exhibit 
in the wrestling school, anoint his body with the fat of his own sausages, 
that he may ' slip from his adversary's calumnies :' they feed him like a 
fighting cock with pungent garlic, and then, as though he were that bird, 
remind him of the manner in which he is to conduct the combat. Mean- 
time the following Parabasis, or digressive address to the audience is 
pronounced : 

PARABASIS. 

Were it one of that old school, learned sirs, who long the rule 

And the tone to our drama hath given, 
Who his lessons and his verse having taught us to rehearse 

Would before this high presence have driven : 
Tis great chance that his request, however warmly pressed, 

Might have met with no easy compliance: — 
But indulgent we have heard the petitions of a bard 

Of new mettle and noblest compliance. 
And may he command aid and service at your hand; 

For his hatreds and ours closely blending 
Into one concurring point leap, and hand and heart and joint 

To the same noble object are tending. 
He no shade nor shelter seeks — what he thinks he boldly speaks : — 

Neither skirmish nor conflict declining, 
He marches all-elate 'gainst that Typhon of the State, 

Storm and hurricane and temj)est combining. 
Marvel much we hear has grown, and inquiries through the town, 

Of the poet have been most unsparing, 



444A.C.] ARISTOPHANES. 365 

(With submission be it known, that these words are not our own, 

But his own proper speech and declaring,) 
Why his dramas hitherto came not forward as was due, 

Their own proper Choregus obtaining; 
Take us with you, sirs, awhile, and a moment's easy toil 

Will in brief be the reason explaining. 
'Twas no folly bred, we say, this distrust and cold delay, 

But a sense of th' extreme application 
And the toil which he, who woos in our town the comic muse, 

Must encounter in such his vocation. 
Then your tempers quick — severe — everchanging with the year — 

To this thought added fears more appalling, 
And a sense of those disasters which, through you, their fickle master, 

Old age on our poets sees falling. 
Could it 'scape observing sight, what was Magnes' wretched plight, 

When the hairs on his temples were hoary ? 
Yet who battled with more zeal, or more trophies left to tell 

Of his former achievements and glory ? 
He came piping, dancing, tapping, — %-gnatting and wing-clapping, — 

Frog-besmear'd and with Lydian grimaces; 
Yet he, too, had his date, nor could wit nor merit great 

Preserve him, unchang'd in your graces. 
Who Cratinus may forget, or the storm of whim and wit, 

Which shook theatres under his guiding? 
When panegyric's song pour'd her flood of praise along, 

Who but he on the top wave was riding? 
Who but he the foremost guest then on gala-day and feast ? 

What strain fell from harp or musician, 
But ' Doro, Doro, sweet nymph with fig-beslipper'd feet,' 

Or — ' Ye verse-smiths and bard-mechanicians ?' 
Thus in glory was he seen, while his years, as yet, were green; 

But now that his dotage is on him, 
, God help him ! for no eye, of all who pass him by, 

Throws a look of compassion upon him. 
'Tis a couch, but with the loss of its garnish and its gloss;— 

'Tis a harp that hath lost all its cunning, — 
'Tis a pipe, where deftest hand may the stops no more command, 

Nor on its divisions be running. 
Conuaa-like, his chaplet-crown'd, and he paces round and round, 

In a circle, which never is ended; — 
On his head a chaplet hangs, but the curses and the pangs 

Of a draught on bis lips are suspended. 
0, if ever yet on bard waited, page-like, high reward ; — 

Former exploits and just reputation, 
By an emphasis of right, sure had earn'd this noble wight 

In the hall a ne'er-failing potation ; 
And in theatres' high station; there as mark for Admiration 

To anchor her aspect and face on, 
In his honor he should sit, nor serve trifiers in the pit, 

As an object their rude jests to pass on. 
I spare myself the toil to record the buffets vile, 

The affronts and the contumelies hateful, 



366 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV 

Which on Crates frequent fell; yet I dare you, sirs, to tell 

Where was caterer more pleasing and grateful? 
Who knew better how to lay soup piquant and entremets, 

Dainty patties and little side-dishes ? 
Where, with all your bards, a muse cook'd more delicate ragouts, 

Or hashed sentiment so to your wishes ? 
Princely cost nor revenue ask'd his banquets, it is true ; 

Yet he is the only stage-master, 
Through all changes and all chances who undaunted still advances 

Alike master of success and disaster. 
Sirs, ye need no more to hear — ye know whence the hue of fear 

O'er our bard's cheek of enterprise stealing, 
And why, like prudent men, who look forth with wider ken, 

In proverbs he's wont to be dealing; 
Saying — better first explore what the powers of scull and oar, 

Ere the helm and the rudder you're trying : 
At the prow next take your turn, there the mysteries to learn 

Of the scud and the winds, that are flying. 
This mastery attain'd, time it is a skiff were gain'd, 

And your pilotage put upon trial; — 
Thus with caution and due heed, step by step would he proceed 

In a cause that should challenge denial. 
Nor let it breed offence, if for such befitting sense 

And so modest a carriage and bearing 
We ask some mark of State on its author here to wait, — 
Guard of honor, procession, or chairing : — 
With a shout of such cheering 
As Bacchus is hearing, 
When vats over flowing 
Set Mirth all a-crowing, 
And Joy and Wine meet 
Hand-in-hand in the street. 
So his purpose attain'd 
And the victory gain'd, 
Your bard shall depart 
With a rapture-touch'd heart, 
While Triumph shall throw 
O'er his cheeks such a glow, 
That Pleasure might trace 
Her own self in his face. 
****** 



CHORAL HYMN. 

Thou, whom patroness we call 
Of this the holiest land of all 

That circling seas admire ; 
The land where Power delights to dwell, 
And War his mightiest feats can tell, 
And Poesy to sweetest swell 

Attunes her voice and lyre. 



444A.C] ARISTOPHANES. 367 

Come, blue-eyed Maid, and with thee bring 
The goddess of the eagle-wing, 

To help our bold endeavor ; 
Long have our armies own'd thine aid, 
Victory, immortal Maid ; 
But now of other deeds we tell; 
A bolder foe remains to quell.; 

Give aid then now or never. 

The Clouds has uniformly been considered the master-piece of Aris- 
tophanes' comedies. In it the poet attacks the sophistical principles at 
their source, and selects as their representative Socrates, whom he 
exhibits in the most odious light. The selection of Socrates for this 
purpose is doubtless to be accounted for by the supposition, that Aris- 
tophanes observed the great philosopher from a distance only, while his 
own unphilosophical turn of mind prevented him from entering into 
Socrates' merits, both as a teacher and a practiser of morality, and by 
the fact that Socrates was an innovator, the friend of Euripides, the 
teacher of Alcibiades, and the disciple of Archelaus ; and that there was 
much in his appearance and habits in the highest degree ludicrous. The 
philosopher who wore no under-garments, and the same upper robe in 
winter and summer — who generally went barefoot, possessing but one 
pair of dress-shoes, which lasted him for life — who used to stand for 
hours together in a public place in a fit of abstraction — to say nothing of 
his snub nose, and extraordinary face and figure — could hardly expect to 
escape the license of the old comedy. The invariably speculative turn 
which he gave to the conversation, his bare acquiescence in the stories of 
Greek mythology, which Aristophanes would think it dangerous even to 
subject to inquiry, had certainly produced an unfavorable opinion of 
Socrates in the minds of many, and explain his being set down by Aris- 
tophanes as an arch-sophist, and represented even as a thief. 

In the Clouds, Socrates is described as corrupting a young man named 
Phidippides, who is wasting his father's money by an insane passion for 
horses, and is sent to the subtlety-shop of Socrates and Chseriphon to be 
still farther set free from moral restraint, and particularly to acquire the 
needful accomplishment of cheating his creditors. In this spendthrift 
youth it is scarcely possible not to recognize Alcibiades, not only from 
his general character and connections with the sophists, but also from 
more particular traits, as allusions to his inability to articulate certain 
letters, and to his love for horse-breeding and driving. Aristophanes 
would be prevented from introducing him by name in the play, from fear 
of the violent measures which Alcibiades was accustomed to adopt towards 
the comic poets who incensed him. The instructions of Socrates teach 
Phidippides not only to defraud his creditors, but also to beat his father, 
and disown the authority of the gods ; and the play ends by the father's 
preparations to burn the philosopher and his own establishment. The 



368 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

hint given towards the end of the play, of the propriety of prosecuting 
Socrates, was acted upon nearly twenty years afterwards, and Aristoph- 
anes was believed to have contributed to his death, as the charges brought 
against him before the court of justice express the substance of those 
contained in the Clouds. The following scene embraces ' The Chorus of 
the Clouds ' — one of the finest efforts of Aristophanes' Muse : 



SOCRATES.— STREP8IADES. 

Soc. Art thou ambitious 

To be instructed in celestial matters, 
And taught to know them clearly ? 

Streps. Aye, aye, in faith, 

So they be to my purpose, and celestial. 

Soc. And if I bring you to a conference 
With my own proper goddesses, the Clouds ? 

Streps. 'Tis what I wish devoutly. 

Soc. Come sit down; 

Repose upon this sacred couch. 

Streps. 'Tis done. 

Soc. Now take the chaplet — wear it. 

Streps. "Why this ehaplet ? 

Would'st make of me another Athamas, 
And sacrifice me to a Cloud ? 

Soc. Fear nothing; 

It is a ceremony indispensable 
At our initiations. 

Streps. What to gain ? 

Soc. (instead of the sacred meat, which was thrown on the sacrificed 
victim, a basket of stones is showered on the head of Strep- 
siades.) 
'Twill sift your faculties as fine as powder, 
Bolt 'em like meal, grind 'em as light as dust; 
Only be patient. 

Streps. Truly you'll go near 

To make your words good ; an' you pound me thus, 
You'll make me very dust, and nothing else. 

Soc. (assuming all the magical solemnity and tone of voice of an 
adept.) 
Keep silence then, and listen to a prayer, 
Which fits the gravity of age to hear — 
Ohl Air, all-powerful Air, which dost enfold 
This pendent globe, thou vault of flaming gold, 
Ye sacred Clouds, who bid the thunder roll, 
Shine forth, approach, and cheer your suppliant's soul! 

Streps. Hold, keep 'em off awhile, till I am ready. 
Ah! luckless me, would I had brought my bonnet, 
And so escaped a soaking. 

Soc. Come, come away ! 

Fly swift, ye Clouds, and give yourselves to view! 



444A.C.J ARISTOPHANES. 369 

Whether on high Olympus' sacred top 

Snow-crown'd ye sit, or in the azure vales 

Of your own father Ocean sporting weave 

Your misty dance, or dip your golden urns 

In the seven mouths of Nile ; whether ye dwell 

On Thracian Mimas, or Majotis' lake, 

Hear me, yet hear, and thus invok'd approach! 

Chorus of Clouds. (The scene is at the remotest part of the stage. 
Thunder is heard. A large and shapeless Cloud is seen floating 
in the air ; from which the following song is heard:) 
Ascend, ye watery Clouds, on high, 
Daughters of Ocean, climb the sky, 
And o'er the mountain's pine-capt brow 
Towering your fleecy mantle throw : 
Thence let us scan the wide-stretch'd scene,. 
Groves, lawns, and rilling streams between, 
And stormy Neptune's vast expanse, 
And grasp all nature at a glance. 
Now the dark tempest flits away, 
And lo ! the glittering orb of day 
Darts forth his clear ethereal beam, 
Come let us snatch the joyous gleam. 
Soc. Yes, ye Divinities, whom I adore, 
I hail you now propitious to my prayer. 
Didst thou not hear them speak in thunder to me ? 

Streps, (kneeling, and with various acts of buffoonery, affecting terror 
and embarrassment.) 
And I too am your Cloudships' most obedient, 
And under sufferance trump against your thunder : — 
Nay, (turning to Socrates,) take it how you may, my frights and fears 
Have pinch'd and cholic'd my poor bowels — 



Soc. Forbear 

Those gross scurrilities, for low buffoons 
And mountebanks more fitting. Hush! be still, 
List to the chorus of their heavenly voices, 
For music is the language they delight in. 
Chorus of Clouds, (approaching nearer) Ye 
Clouds, replete with fruitful showers, 
Here let us seek Minerva's towers, 
The cradle of old Cecrops' race, 
The world's chief ornament and grace : 
Here mystic fanes and rites divine 
And lamps in sacred splendor shine ; 
Here the gods dwell in marble domes, 
Feasted with costly hecatombs, 
That round their votive statues blaze, 
Whilst crowded temples ring with praise 
And pompous sacrifices here 
Make holidays throughout the year, 
And when gay spring-time comes again, 
Bromius convokes his sportive train, 
24 



370 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV 

And pipe, and song, and choral-dance 
Hail the soft hours as they advance. 

Streps. Now, in the name of Jove, I pray thee tell me, 
Who are those ranting dames that talk in stilts? 
Of the Amazonian cast no doubt. 

Soc. Not so, 

No dames, but Clouds celestial, friendly powers 
To men of sluggish parts ; from these we draw 
Sense, apprehension, volubility, 
Wit to confute, and cunning to ensnare. 

Streps. Aye, therefore 'twas that my heart leapt within me 
For very sympathy when first I heard 'em: 
Now I could prattle shrewdly of first causes, 
And spin out metaphysic cobwebs finely, 
And dogmatize most rarely, and dispute 
And paradox it with the best of you : 
So, come what may, I must and will behold 'em ; 
Show me their faces, I conjure you. 

Soc. Look, 

Look towards Mount Parnes as I point — There, there! 
Now they descend the hill ; I see them plainly, 
As plain as can be. 

Sterps. Where, where? I pray thee, show me. 

Soc. Here ! a whole troop of them through woods and hollows, 
A bye-way of their own. 

Sterps. What ails my eyes, 

That I can't catch a glimpse of them? 

Soc. Behold! 

Here, at the very entrance. 

Streps. Never trust me, 

If yet I see them clearly. 

Soc. Then you must be 

Sand-blind, or worse. 

Streps. Nay, now by father Jove, 

I cannot choose but see them — precious creatures ! 
Por in good faith here's plenty and to spare. 

Enter Chorus of Clouds. 

Soc. And didst thou doubt if they were goddesses ? 

Streps. Not I, so help me! only I'd a notion 
That they were fog, and dew, and dusky vapor. 

Soc. Por shame ! Why, man, these are the nursing mothers 
Of all our famous sophists, fortune-tellers, 
Quacks, med'cine-mongers, bards bombastical, 
Chorus projectors, star interpreters, 
And wonder-making cheats. The gang of idlers, 
Who pay them for their feeding with good store 
Of flattery and mouth-worship. 

Streps. Now I see 

Whom we may thank for driving them along 
At such a furious dithyrambic rate, 
Sun-shadowing clouds, of many-color'd hues, 



444A.C] ARISTOPHANES. 371 

Air-rending tempests, hundred- headed typhons, 
Now rousing, rattling them about our ears, 
Now gently wafting them adown the sky, 
Moist, airy, bending, bursting into showers ; 
For all which fine descriptions, these poor knaves 
Dine daintily on scraps. 

Soc. And proper fare: 

"What better do they merit ? 

Streps. Under favor, 

If these be clouds, (d' you mark me ?) very clouds, 
How came they metamorphos'd into women? 
Clouds are not such as these. 

JSoc. And what else are they ? 

Streps. Troth, I can't rightly tell, but I should guess 
Something like flakes of wool, not women, sure : 
And look! these dames have noses. 

Soc. Hark you friend, 

I'll put a question to you. 

Streps. Out with it ! 

Be quick: let's have it. 

Soc. This it is in short — 

Hast thou ne'er seen a cloud, which thou could'st fancy 
Shap'd like a centaur, leopard, wolf, or bull? 

Streps. Yea, marry have I, and what then? 

Soc. Why then 

Clouds can assume what shape they will, believe me; 
For instance : should they spy some hairy clown 
Rugged and rough, and like the unlick'd cub 
Of Xenophantes, straight they turn to centaurs, 
And kick at him for vengeance. 

Streps. Well done, Clouds! 

But should they spy that peculating knave, 
Simon, that public thief, how would they treat him? 

Soc. As wolves — in character most like his own. 

Streps. Aye, there it is now, when they saw Cleonymus, 
That dastard runaway, they turn'd to hinds 
In honor of his cowardice. 

Soc. And now 

Having seen Cleisthenes, to mock his lewdness 
They change themselves to women. 

Streps. Welcome, ladies! 

Imperial ladies welcome! An' it please 
Your highnesses so far to grace a mortal, 
Give me a touch of your celestial voices. 

Ch. Hail, grandsire, who at this late hour of life 
Would go to school for cunning; and all hail, 
Thou prince pontifical of quirks and quibbles, 
Speak thy full mind, make known thy wants and wishes. 
Thee and our worthy Prodicus excepted, 
Not one of all your sophists have our ear : 
Him for his wit and learning we esteem, 
Thee for thy proud deportment and high looks, 



372 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

In barefoot beggary strutting up and down, 
Content to suffer mockery for our sake, 
And carry a grave face whilst others laugh. 

Streps. Oh ! mother Earth, was ever voice like this, 
So reverend, so portentous, so divine ! 

Soc. These are your only deities, all else 
I flout at. 

The Wasps is, doubtless, one of the most perfect of the plays of Aris- 
tophanes ; and it is so closely connected with the Clouds, that it is impos- 
sible to mistake a similarity of design in the development of certain 
thoughts in each. The Clouds, especially in its original form, was di- 
rected against the young Athenians, who as wrangling tricksters, vexed 
the simple inoffensive citizens of Athens by bringing them against their 
will into the law-courts. The Wasps is aimed at the old Athenians, who 
took their seats day after day in great masses as judges, and being com- 
pensated for their loss of time by the judicial fees established by Pericles, 
gave themselves up entirely to the decision of the causes, which had be- 
come infinitely multiplied by the obligation on the allies to try their 
suits at Athens, and by the party spirit in the State itself: whereby these 
old people had acquired far too surly and snarling a spirit, to the great 
damage of the accused. 

In this comedy two persons are directly opposed to each other — the old 
JPhilocleon, who has given up the management of his affairs to his son, 
and devoted himself entirely to his office of judge, paying the profoundest 
respect to Cleon — and his son Bdelycleon, who has a horror of Cleon, 
and of the severity of the courts in general. It is very remarkable how 
entirely the course of the action between these two characters corre- 
sponds to that in the Clouds, so that we can hardly mistake the intention 
of Aristophanes to make the one piece the counterpart of the other. The 
irony of fate, which the aged Strepsiades experiences, when that which 
had been the greatest object of his wishes, namely, to have his son 
thoroughly imbued with the rhetorical fluency of 'the Sophists, soon 
turns out to be the greatest misfortune to him — is precisely the same 
with the irony of which the young Bdelycleon is the object in the Wasps; 
for, after having directed all his efforts towards curing his father of his 
mania for the profession of judge, and having actually succeeded in doing 
so, partly by establishing a private dicasterion at home, and partly by 
recommending to him the charms of fashionable luxurious life, he soon 
bitterly repents of the metamorphosis which he has effected, since the 
old man, by a strange mixture of his old-fashioned rude manners with the 
luxury of the day, allows his dissoluteness to carry him much farther 
than Bdelycleon had either expected or desired. From this play we 
deem it unnecessary to introduce any illustrative extract. 

The Peace, the next of Aristophanes' comedies in order, is, in its 



444A.C.] ARISTOPHANES. 373 

subject, essentially the same as the Acharnians, except that, in the latter, 
peace is represented as the wish of an individual only, while in the former 
it is wished for by all. In the Acharnians, the chorus is opposed to peace ; 
but in the Peace, it is composed of countrymen of Attica, and all parts of 
Greece, who are full of longing desire for peace. It must be allowed, 
however, that in dramatic interest the Acharnians far exceeds that of 
the Peace, the latter being greatly wanting in the unity of a strong comic 
action. It must, no doubt, have been highly amusing to ^ see how Try- 
gseus ascends to heaven on the back of an entirely new sort of Pegasus — 
a dung-beetle — and there, amidst all kinds of dangers, in spite of the 
rage of the demon of war, carries off the goddess Peace, with her fair 
companions, Harvesthome and Mayday. But the sacrifice on account of 
the peace, and the preparations for the marriage of Trygaeus with Har- 
vesthome, are split up into a number of separate scenes, without any 
direct progress of the action, and without any great vigor of comic 
imagination. It is also very obvious that Aristophanes endeavors to 
diminish the tediousness of these scenes by some of those loose jokes, 
which never failed to produce their effect on the common people of 
Athens. The following simple scene from this play is extremely beau- 
tiful : 

TRYG^EUS— CHORUS. 

Try. Ever lovely, ever dear, 
How may I salute thine ear! 
O what size of words may tell 
Half the charms that in thee dwell ! 
In thy sight are joy and pleasure, 
"Without stint and without measure. 
In thy breath is all that flings 
Sense and thought of choicest things; 
Dropping odors — rosy wine — 
Fragrant spike and nard divine. 

Ch. Pipe and lute and dance are ther 
Tragic pomp and stately air: 
With the Sophoclean strain, 
"When he's in his noblest vein, 
And the daintier lays that please, 
Falling from Euripides. 

Try. (interrupting.) Out upon thee ! Fie ! for shame 1 
Vex me not with such a name! 
Half a pleader — half a bard — 
How may such win her regard ? 

Ch. she's joy and recreation, 
Vintage in full operation, 
Vat and cask in requisition, 
Strainer making inquisition 
For the new-press'd grape and wine, 
"What is foul and what is fine ! 



374 ARISTOPHANES. [Leot XIV 

Round meantime the fleecy brood 
Clamor for their fragrant food; 
"Which by village dame or maid — 
Bosom-laden — is convey'd. 
Thus -without; while all within 
Marks the harvest's jovial din ; 
Hand to hand the goblets flying, 
Or in sweet disorder lying ; 
Serf and master, slave and free 
Joining in the gladsome glee 
Of a general jollity. 
These and thousand blessings more 
Peace hath ever yet in store. 

The Amphiaraus did not appear until six years after the representa- 
tion of the Peace ; the plays, therefore, of Aristophanes, written during 
this period must now be lost. The object of this comedy was to discour 
age the disastrous Sicilian expedition. It was named after one of the 
seven chiefs against Thebes, remarkable for prophesying ill-luck to the 
expedition, and in that particular corresponding to the character of Nicias. 

The Birds was brought out 414 A.C. — the same year in which the Am- 
phiaraus appeared, and in this play Aristophanes exhibits all the variety 
of his comic genius. If the Acharnians, therefore, may be regarded as a 
specimen of the youthful vigor of the poet, in the Birds that vigor is dis- 
played in all its splendor, and with a style, in which a proud flight of 
imagination is united with the coarsest jocularity, and the most genial 
humor. 

The object of the Birds has been much disputed among critics. 
Schlegel considers it a mere fanciful piece of buffoonery — a supposition 
hardly credible, when we remember that every one of the plays of Aris- 
tophanes has a distinct purpose connected with the history of the times. 
The Birds, doubtless, represent the Athenian people, who are persuaded 
to build a city in the clouds by Peisthetserus — a character combining 
traits of Alcibiades and G-orgias, mixed, perhaps, with some from other 
sophists — and who is attended by a sort of Sancho Panza, one Euelpides, 
designed to represent the credulous young Athenians. The city, to be 
called Cloudcuckootown, is to occupy the whole horizon, and to cut off 
the gods from all connection with mankind, and even from the power of 
receiving sacrifices, so as to force them ultimately to surrender at discre- 
tion to the birds. All this scheme, and the details which fill it up, coin- 
cide admirably with the Sicilian expedition, which was designed not only 
to take possession of Sicily, but afterwards to conquer Carthage and 
Libya, and so, from the supremacy of the Mediterranean, to acquire that 
of the Peloponnesus, and reduce the Spartans — the gods of the play. 
The plan succeeds : the gods send ambassadors to demand terms, and 
finally Peisthetserus marries Basileia, the daughter of Jupiter. The poet 



444A.C.] ARISTOPHANES. 375 

does not, however, limit himself to this object, but often touches on other 
points, and sometimes indulges in pure humor to an extent that forcibly 
reminds us of the scheme of Gulliver's Travels. 

Of the following Parabasis the merits are well known ; and perhaps no 
other passage of Aristophanes has been so often quoted with admiration : 

Ye children of man, whose life is a span, 

Protracted with sorrow from day to day, 

Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous, 

Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay ! 

Attend to the words of the sovereign birds, 

(Immortal, illustrious, lords of the air,) 

"Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye, 

Your struggles of misery, labor and care. 

"Whence you may learn and clearly discern 

Such truths as attract your inquisitive turn; 

Which is busied of late with a mighty debate, 

A profound speculation about the creation, 

An organical life, and chaotical strife, 

With various notions of heavenly motions, 

And rivers and oceans, and valleys and mountains, 

And sources of fountains, and meteors on high, 

And stars in the sky. We propose by-and-bye, 

(If you'll listen and hear) to make it all clear, 

And Prodicus henceforth shall pass for a dunce 

When his doubts are explained and expounded at once. 

Before the creation of JEther and Light, 
Chaos and Night together were plight, 
In the dungeon of Erebus foully bedight; 
Nor Ocean or Air, or Substance was there, 
Or Solid or Rare, or Figure or Form, 
But horrible Tartarus ruled in the storm. 
At length, in the dreary chaotical closet 
Of Erebus old, was a privy deposit, 
By night the primeval in secrecy laid ; 
A mystical egg, that in silence and shade 
Was brooded and hatched ; till time came about : 
And Love, the delightful, in glory flew out, 
In rapture and light, exulting and bright, 
Sparkling and florid, with stars on his forehead, 
His forehead and hair, and a flutter and flare, 
As he rose in the air, triumphantly furnish'd, 
To range his dominions, on glittering pinions, 
And golden and azure, and blooming and burnish'd. 

He soon in the murky Tartarean recesses, 
With a hurricane's might, in his fiery caresses, 
Impregnated Chaos; and hastily snatch'd 
To being and life, begotten and hatch'd, 
The primitive Birds : But the Deities all, 
The celestial Lights, the terrestrial Ball \ 
Were later of birth, with the dwellers on earth, 



376 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIY 

More tamely combin'd, of a temperate kind, 
When chaotical mixture approach'd to a fixture. 
Our antiquity prov'd; it remains to be shown 
That Love is our author and master alone ; 
Like him we can ramble, and gambol, and fly 
O'er ocean and earth, and aloft to the sky : 
And all the world over we're friends to the lover, 
And when other means fail, we are found to prevail, 
When a peacock or pheasant is sent for a present. 



THE CITY OF THE CLOUDS. 

Enter a Messenger, out of breath, and speaking in short snatches. 



Where is he ? where ? where is he ? where ? where is he ? 
The president, Peisthetserus ? 

Peis. {Coolly.) Here am L 

Mess. Your fortification's finished. 

'Peis. Well! that's well 

Mess. A most amazing, astonishing work it is ! 
So that Theagines and Proxenides 
Might flourish, and gasconade, and prance away, 
Quite at their ease, both of them four in hand, 
Driving abreast upon the breadth of the wall, 
Each in his own new chariot. 

Peis. You surprise me. 

Mess. And the height (for I made measurement myself ) 
Is just a hundred fathom. 

Peis. Heaven and earth ! 

How could it be ? Such a mass ! Who could have built it ? 

Mess. The Birds ; no creatures else, no foreigners, 
Egyptian workmen, bricklayers, or masons, 
But they themselves alone, by their own efforts, 
(Even to my surprise, as an eye-witness,) — 
The Birds, I say, completed every thing. 

There came a body of thirty thousand cranes, 
(I wont to be positive, there might be more,) 
With stones from Africa, in their craws and gizzards, 
Which the stone-curlews and stone-chatterers 
Workd into shape and finish'd. The sand-martins, 
And mud-larks, too, were busy in their department, 
Mixing the mortar, while the water-birds, 
As fast as it was wanted, brought the water 
To temper and work it. 

Peis. {In a fidget.) But who served the masons ? 
Whom did you get to carry it ? 

Mess. To carry it ? 

Of course, the carrion-crows and carrier-pigeons. 

A brief notice of the remaining dramas of Aristophanes, will close our 
present remarks. 



444A.C] ARISTOPHANES. 37*7 

The Lysistrata is the coarsest of the Aristophanic comedies. In it 
the author returns to the old subject of the Peloponnesian war, and here 
we find miseries described as actually existing, which, in the Acharnians 
and Peace, had only been predicted. A treaty is finally represented as 
brought about through the influence of Lysistrata and her female asso- 
ciates. 

The Thesmophoriazusae derives its title from the Thesmophoria, or 
feast of Ceres and Proserpine, at which women alone were present. It 
is the first of the two great attacks on Euripides, and contains some in- 
imitable parodies on his plays, especially the Andromeda, which had 
just at that time been brought upon the stage. The play is almost 
wholly* free from political allusions ; but the few which are found in it 
show the attachment of the poet to the old democracy, and that, though 
a strong conservative, he was not an oligarchist. 

Both the Plutus and the Ecclesiazusse are designed to divert the pre- 
vailing mania for Dorian manners — the latter ridiculing the political 
theories of Plato, which were entirely based on Spartan institutions. It 
was also intended as a warning to all restless innovators, to beware how 
they endangered, by fanciful reforms, the integrity of the Athenian insti- 
tutions. The Plutus is an allegorical satire upon a class, not upon in- 
dividuals ; and, as Addison has well remarked, it conveys two important 
moral lessons : — it vindicates the conduct of Providence in the distribu- 
tion of wealth, and shows the tendency of riches to corrupt the morals of 
those who possess them. 

The Frogs, the last of Aristophanes' dramas that we design to notice 
particularly, is a literary criticism of the highest order of merit. The 
idea on which it is based is grand in the extreme, Bacchus, the god of 
the Attic stage, here represented as a young Athenian fox, who an- 
nounces himself as a connoisseur of tragedies, is much distressed at the 
great deficiency of tragic poets after the death of Euripides aud Sophocles, 
and is resolved to go and bring up a tragedian from the other world — if 
possible Euripides. He gets Charon to ferry him over the pool which 
forms the boundary of the infernal regions, and arrives, after various ad- 
ventures, at the place where the chorus of the happy souls who have 
been initiated into the mysteries perform their songs and dances. It so 
happens that a strife has arisen in the subterranean world between iEschy- 
lus, who has hitherto occupied the tragic throne, and the newly-arrived 
Euripides, who lays claim to it ; and Bacchus connects this with his own 
plan by promising to take with him to the upper regions the one who gains 
the victory in this contest. 

The contest which ensues is a peculiar mixture of jest and earnest — 
extending over every department of tragic art — the subject-matter and 



378 ARISTOPHANES. [Lect. XIV. 

moral effects, the style and execution, prologues, choral songs, and mono- 
dies, and often, though in a very comic manner, hits the right point. At 
the end of the play the two tragedians proceed to weigh their verses, 
when the powerful sayings of iEschylus make the pointed thoughts of 
Euripides kick the beam ; and to add to Euripides' mortification, So- 
phocles is left to occupy the vacant tragic throne in Hades during 
iEschylus' visit to earth. The choral songs and odes with which this 
comedy abounds, are amongst the very gems of Aristophanic poetry. 

The dramas which Aristophanes produced after the close of the Pe 
loponnesian war, plainly indicate the commencement of the transition 
which so soon followed from the Old to the Middle Comedy ; and hav- 
ing now closed our remarks upon the former, to the latter our attention 
will next be directed. 



tuhn tjit /iftmtjr 



THE MIDDLE COMEDY.— PHILIPPUS.— EUBULUS.— ANAXANDRIDES.— AN- 
TIPHANES. — ARISTOPHON — CLEARCHUS. — DIODORUS. — EPHIPPUS.— 
EPICRATES. — ERIPHUS. — MNESIMACHUS. — STRATON. — MOSCHION.— 
NICOSTRATUS. — ALEXIS.— SOTADES.— THEOPHILUS.— TIMOCLES.— THE 
NEW COMEDY.— MENANDER.— PHILEMON.— DIPHILUS.— APOLLODORUS. 
PHILIPPIDES.— POSIDIPPUS. 



WHILE, as we have seen, the characteristic feature of the Old 
Comedy was personality, that of the Middle Comedy was philosoph- 
ical and literary criticism, and an attack upon the vices and follies of classes, 
rather than of individuals. Hence, the transition to the latter is easier 
from the Sicilian comedy of Epicharmus, than from the Attic comedy of 
Aristophanes, who appears entirely unlike himself in the JEolosicon, and 
in his other plays which were written in the latter years of his life, and 
which approximate in their form to the middle comedy. 

The democracy of Athens was still moving in unrestrained freedom, 
but the people had no longer such pride and confidence in themselves as 
to ridicule, from the stage, their rulers, and the recognized principles of 
State policy, and at the same time to prevent themselves from being led 
astray by such ridicule. The unfortunate termination of the Peloponne- 
sian war had damped the first fresh vigor of the Athenian State. Free- 
dom and democracy, it is true, had been restored to the Athenians, and 
even a sort of maritime supremacy ; but their former energy of public 
life had not been restored along with them : there were too many weak- 
nesses and defects in all parts of their political condition — in their 
finances, in the war-department, and in the law-courts. The Athenians 
were, perhaps, well aware of this, but they were too indolent and fond of 
pleasure to set about in earnest to free themselves from these incon- 
veniences. Under such circumstances, satire and ridicule, such as Aris- 
tophanes indulged in, would have been quite intolerable ; for it would no 
longer have pointed out certain shadows in a bright and glorious picture, 
but would have exhibited one dark picture without a single ray of light, 
and consequently would have lacked all the cheerfulness of comedy. Ac- 
cordingly, the comedians of this period took that general moral ten- 



380 THE MIDDLE COMEDY. [Lect. XV. 

dency which we have already noticed in the Sicilian comedy, and in all 
that was connected with it. They represented the ludicrous absurdities 
of certain classes and conditions in society, and in their diction kept close 
to the language of common life, which prevails much more uniformly in 
their plays, than in those of Aristophanes. 

The dramas of these comedians were not altogether without a basis 
of personal satire ; but this was no longer directed against influential 
men, the rulers of the people ; or, if it touched them at all, it was not on 
account of their political character, or of any principles approved by the 
bulk of the people. On the contrary, the middle comedy cultivated a 
narrower field of its own — the department of literary rivalship. The 
dramas of the middle comedy were rich in ridicule of the Platonic 
Academy, of the newly-revived sect of the Pythagoreans, of the orators 
and rhetoricians of the day, and of the tragic and epic poets : they some- 
times even took a retrospective view, and subjected to their criticism 
anything which they thought weak or imperfect in the poems of Homer. 
This criticism was, however, totally different from that directed by Aris- 
tophanes against Socrates, which was founded exclusively upon moral and 
practical views. The judgments of the middle comedy considered every- 
thing in a literary point of view, and, if we may reason from individual 
instances, were directed solely against the character of the writings of the 
persons criticised. 

In the transition from the old to the middle comedy, we may discern 
at once the great revolution which had taken place in the domestic history 
of Athens, when the Athenians, from a community of politicians, be- 
came a nation of literary men — when, instead of pronouncing judgment 
upon the general politics of Greece, and the law-suits of their allies, they 
judged only of the genuineness of the Attic style and of good taste in 
oratory — when it was no longer the opposition of the political ideas of 
Themistocles and Cimon, but the contests of opposing schools of philoso- 
phers and rhetoricians, which set all heads in motion. This great change, 
it is true, was not fully accomplished till the time of Alexander's suc- 
cesses, but the middle comedy stands as a guide-post, clearly pointing out 
the way to its consummation. The frequency of mythical subjects in the 
comedies of this class, has the same grounds as in the Sicilian comedy ; 
for the object of both was to clothe general delineations of character in 
a mythical form. Farther than this, we must confess that our concep- 
tions of the middle comedy are somewhat indistinct and uncertain. This 
arises from the constitution of the middle comedy itself, which is rather 
a transition state than a distinct species. Consequently, we find, along 
with many features recommending the old comedy, also some peculiarities 
of the new. Aristotle, indeed, in his remarks upon the comic drama of 
Athens, speaks only of an Old and a New Comedy, without reference to 
any other. 



400A.C.] EUBULUS. 381 

The poets of the Middle Comedy are very numerous, and occupy the 
interval between 380 A.C. and the reign of Alexander the Great — a 
space of forty-four years. Of the earliest to he noticed are the two sons 
of Aristophanes, Araros and JPhilippus, and the prolific Eubulus. Of 
the dramas of Araros nothing now remains, and of those of Philippus, or, 
as he is sometimes called, Nicostratus, we have only the following brief 
fragment : 

LOQUACITY. 

If in prattling from morning till night 

A sign of our wisdom there be, 
The swallows are wiser by right, 

For they prattle much faster than we. 



Eubulus, the son of Euphranor, was of Athenian ancestry, though 
born at Atarna in the island of Lesbos. He commenced his career as a 
comic writer, according to Suidas 376 A.C, and continued to exhibit 
comedies regularly until just before the middle comedy was superseded 
hj the new. He was the author of one hundred and four comedies, of 
more than fifty of which the titles are still preserved. The subjects of 
his plays were chiefly mythological ; and several of them contained paro- 
dies of passages from the tragic poets, and especially from Euripides. 
There are a few instances of his attacking, after the manner of the old 
comedy, eminent individuals by name ; as Philocrates, Cydias, Callime- 
don, Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse, and Callistratus. Occasionally 
his ridicule embraces whole classes and communities of persons, as, in 
one of his plays, the Thebans. 

The language of Eubulus is simple, elegant, and generally pure, con- 
taining few words which are not found in writers of the best period. Not 
many fragments of this poet have been preserved; but those which we 
have are of very rare merit. In his comedy of the Cup-bearers he intro- 
duces Bacchus in person laying down to mankind the following temperate 
and moral rules against the abuse of his blessings : 

Three cups of wine a prudent man may take; 
The first of these for constitution's sake ; 
The second to the girl he loves the best ; 
The third and last to lull him to his rest: 
Then home to bed. But if a fourth he pours, 
That is the cup of folly and not ours ; 
Loud noisy talking on the fifth attends ; 
The sixth breeds feuds and falling out of friends ; 
Seven begets blows, and faces stain'd with gore; 
Eight, and the watch -patrole breaks ope the door; 
Mad with the ninth, another cup goes round, 
And the swill'd sot drops senseless to the ground. 



382 AN AX AND RIDES. [Lect. XY. 

When such maxims of moderation as these proceed from the lips of 
Bacchus himself, it argues great impiety in his votaries not to obey them. 

The following ingenious turn upon the emblem of Love, addressed to a 
painter, is so exquisite, that the most elegant epigrammatist might be 
proud of it : 

Why, foolish painter, give those wings to Love? 
Love is not light, as my sad heart can prove: 
Love hath no wings, or none that I can see: 
If he can fly, oh ! bid him fly from me ! 

Anaxandrides follows Eubulus, and he is said to have been the first to 
introduce into comedy the intrigues of love, which afterwards formed so 
large an ingredient in it. To him succeeded Amphis, Anaxilaus. Ax- 
zonicus, Chceremon, and Baton. These are followed by Antiphones, 
Aristophon, Clearchus, Criton, Crobylus, Demetrius, Damoxenus, Diodo- 
rus, Ephippus, Dionysius of Sinope^ Dionysius of Syracuse and Epicra- 
tes. 

Anaxandrides was the son of Anaxander of Rhodes, and was the author 
of sixty-five comedies, with ten of which he bore away the prizes from his 
competitors. Nature, according to Athenseus, bestowed upon this poet, 
not only a fine genius, but a most beautiful person. His stature was tall, 
his air elegant and engaging ; and whilst he affected an effeminate deli- 
cacy in his habit and appearauce, he was a victim to the most violent and 
uncontrollable passions, which, whenever he was disappointed of the prize 
he contended for, were vented upon every person and thing that fell in 
his way, not excepting even his own unfortunate dramas, which he would 
tear in pieces and scatter amongst the mob. Of these he would preserve 
no copy, and thus it came to pass that many admirable comedies were 
actually destroyed and lost to posterity. 

The dress of Anaxandrides, according to the same authority, was splen- 
did and extravagant in the extreme, being of the finest purple, richly 
fringed with gold ; and his hair was not coiled up in the Athenian fash- 
ion, but suffered to fall over his shoulders at its full length. His muse 
was no less wanton and voluptuous than his manners ; for, as we have 
already intimated, he was the first comic poet who ventured to introduce 
upon the stage, incidents of the grossest intrigue. He was not only se- 
vere upon Plato and the Academy, but attacked the magistracy of Athens, 
charging them with the depravity of their lives, in so daring and con- 
temptuous a style, that they brought him to trial, and by one of the most 
cruel sentences upon record, condemned the unhappy poet to be starved 
to death. To this circumstance Ovid alludes in the following distich : — 

Or meet the libeller's unpitied fate, 
Starved for traducing the Athenian state. 



375A.C] MIDDLE COMEDY POETS. 383 

The following lines on Old Age, afford the only connected fragment 
of AnaXandrides' poetry with which we are acquainted : 

Ye gods ! how easily the good man bears 

His cumbrous honors of increasing years. 

Age, oh my father, is not, as they say, 

A load of evils heap'd on mortal clay, 

Unless impatient folly aids the curse, 

And weak lamenting makes our sorrows worse. 

He whose soft soul, whose temper ever even, 

"Whose habits, placid as a cloudless heaven, 

Approve the partial blessings of the sky, 

Smooths the rough road, and walks untroubled by; 

Untimely wrinkles furrow not his brow, 

And graceful wave his locks of reverend snow. 



Of Amphis little more is known than that he was a contemporary of 
the philosopher Plato, whom he made the butt of his wit and ridicule. 
A reference in one of his plays to Phryne, the Thespian, proves that he 
was still living 332 A.C. We have the titles of twenty-six of his com- 
edies, but the few fragments of his poetry that remain afford no just cri- 
terion for judging of his peculiar genius. In his own age, however, he 
was greatly admired. 

Anaxilaus was a native of Athens, and was also a contemporary of 
Plato, whom he satirized in one of his plays, with the greatest severity. 
A few unimportant fragments, and the titles of nineteen of his comedies 
remain, eight of which are on mythological subjects. 

Of Axionicus nothing farther is known than that he was a native Athe- 
nian, and a writer of high reputation in his day. Athenaeus has preserved 
the titles of six of his comedies, and some unimportant fragments. 

Chaeremon is so differently noticed by different writers of antiquity, 
that it is almost impossible to assign him his proper place. By some he 
is represented as the disciple of Socrates, and a writer of tragedies ; 
whilst others assign him to the Old Comedy. Aristotle, Athenseus, Sui- 
das, Stobseus, Theophrastus, and others, assign him, however, to the 
Middle Comedy, and speak of him in terms of unlimited praise. The 
titles of nine of his comedies, with some scraps of his dialogue, have been 
preserved by these authors ; and Aristotle relates that in his comedy of 
The Hippocentaur he introduced a rhapsody, in which he contrived to 
mingle every species of meter, inventing, as it would seem, a character- 
istic measure for a compound monster out of nature. 

Of Baton, to whom Suidas repeatedly alludes, no historical records 



384 ANTIPHANES. [Leot. XV. 

whatever have been preserved. A few fragments of his comedies, with 
three of their titles, is all of him that we now possess. 

Antiphanes was one of the earliest and most celebrated Athenian poets 
of the Middle Comedy. He was born, according to Suidas, at Smyrna, 
in Ionia, 404 A.C., and lived till 330 A.C. — seventy-four years. His 
first comedy was exhibited 383 A.C, when the poet had just reached the 
twenty-first year of his age. 

The parentage of Antiphanes is very doubtful ; though it is generally 
conceded that he was of low origin. His father's name was Deniophanes, 
or Stephanus ; probably the latter, since he had a son named Stephanus, 
in accordance with an Athenian custom of naming a child after his grand- 
father. But whatever may have been the condition of Antiphanes' pa- 
rents, yet the poet so signalized himself by his genius, and was held in 
such respect by the Athenians, that a public decree was made for the re- 
moval of his remains from the isle of Chios, where he died, and for depos- 
iting them in the city of Athens, where his funeral 7 honors were sumptu- 
ously performed at the charge of the State. 

Of the number of Antiphanes' comedies various accounts have been 
given ; but of all the Greek dramatic writers he appears to have been the 
most prolific ; for the lowest list of his plays amounts to two hundred and 
ninety, and some contend that he actually composed three hundred and 
sixty-five, a number almost incredible. With thirty of his comedies he 
bore off the prize ; and if those successes appear disproportioned to the 
number of his attempts, we must remember that many of his rivals were 
poets of the highest order of genius. To judge of the absolute merits of 
this voluminous writer, we have now no other means than the fragments 
of his dramas that have descended to us ; and even these we cannot con- 
template without a sensible regret that so few amongst them comprise 
any such portion of the dialogue as to open the character, style, and man- 
ners of the writer, and not often enough to furnish a conjecture at the 
fable to which they appertain. They are like small crevices letting in 
one feeble ray of light into a capacious building : they dart occasionally 
upon some rich and noble part, but they cannot convey to us a full and 
perfect idea of the symmetry and construction of the majestic whole. 

Of the numerous comedies of Antiphanes, the titles of one hundred 
and thirty have been preserved. Two of these, — one entitled Matri- 
mony, and the other The Nuptials, — are severe satires upon woman. 
To one or the other of these comedies, the following animated strain 
doubtless belonged : 

For this, and only this, Til trust a woman, 
That if you take life from her she will die, 
And being dead she'll come to life no more ; 
In all things else I am an infidel 



370A.C] ANTIPHANES. . 385 

might I never more behold a woman ! 
Kather than I should meet that object, gods 1 
Strike out my eyes — I'll thank you for your mercy. 

To Athenseus we are indebted for the following fragment of a dialogue, 
in which Antiphanes has introduced a traveller to relate a whimsical con- 
trivance, which the king of Cyprus had made use of for cooling the air of 
his banqueting chamber, while he sat at supper : 

A. You say you've passed much of your time in Cyprus. 

B. All; for the war prevented my departure. 

A. In what place chiefly, may I ask? 

B. In Paphos; 

Where I saw elegance in such perfection 
As almost mocks belief. 

A. Of what kind, pray you ? 

B. Take this for one — the monarch, when he sups, 
Is fanned by living doves. 

A. You make me curious 

How this is to be done ; all other questions 
I will put by to be resolved in this. 

B. There is a juice drawn from the carpin tree, 
To which your dove instinctively is wedded 

"With almost loving appetite; with this 

The king anoints his temples, and the odor 

No sooner captivates the silly birds, 

Than straight they flutter round him, — nay, would fly 

A bolder pitch, so strong a love-charm draws them, 

And perch, horror ! on his sacred crown, 

If that such profanation were permitted 

Of the bystanders, who, with reverend care, 

Fright them away, till thus, retreating now. 

And now advancing, they keep such a coil 

With their broad vans, and beat the lazy air 

Into so quick a stir, that in the conflict 

His royal lungs are comfortably cool'd, 

And thus he sups as Paphian monarchs should. 

The following raUlery from a servant of his master, for a species of 
hypocrisy natural to old age, is certainly very comic : 

Ah, good my master, you may sigh for death, 
And call amain upon him to relieve you, 
But will you bid him welcome when he comes? 
Not you. Old Charon has a stubborn task 
To tug you to his wherry and dislodge you 
From your rich tables, when your hour is come : 
I muse the gods send not a plague amongst you, 
A good, brisk, sweeping epidemic plague: 
There's nothing else can make you all immortal. 

25 



386 ANTIPHANES. [Lect. XV. 

The following brief passages have an exceedingly neat turn of express- 
ion in the original ; and even in the translation, the sentiments must 
commend themselves to every reader : 

An honest man to law makes no resort; 
His conscience is the better rule of court. 

The man who first laid down the pedant rule 
That love is folly, was himself a fool: 
For if to life that transport you deny, 
"What privilege is left us — but to die? 

Cease, mourner, cease complaint, and weep no more ! 
Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before; 
Advanced a stage or two upon that road 
Which you must travel in the steps they trod ? 
In the same inn we all shall meet at last, 
There take new life and laugh at sorrows past. 

Yes — 'tis the greatest evil man can know, 
The keenest sorrow in this world of woe, 
The heaviest impost laid on human breath, 
Which all must pay, or yield the forfeit — death. 
For death all wretches pray ; but when the prayer 
Is heard, and he steps forth to ease their care, 
Gods ! how they tremble at his aspect rude, 
And, loathing turn ! Such man's ingratitude ! 
And none so fondly cling to life, as he 
Who hath outlived all life's felicity. 

Though we have already given a parasite from Eupolis, yet we cannot 
refuse admission to the following pleasant, impudent fellow, who gives 
name to a comedy of Antiphanes, and in the following spirited apology 
for his life and actions, takes upon himself the office of being his own 
historian. The fragment itself is a very striking specimen of the author : 

What art, vocation, trade, or mystery 
Can match with your fine Parasite ? The painter ? 
He ! a mere dauber : a vile drudge, the farmer : 
Their business is to labor, ours to laugh, 
To jeer, to quibble, faith, sirs ! and to drink. 
Ay, and to drink lustily. Is not this rare ? 
'Tis life, my life at least: the first of pleasure 
Were to be rich myself ; but next to this 
I hold it best to be a parasite, * 

And feed upon the rich. Now, mark me right ! 
Set down my virtues one by one : imprimis, 
Good will to all men. Would they were all rich, 
So might I gull them all : malice to none ; 
I envy no man's fortune — all I wish 
Is but to share it : would you have a friend, 



S70A.C] ARISTOPHON. 3, 

A gallant steady friend? I am your man: 

No striker I, no swaggerer, no defamer, 

But one to bear all these and still forbear : 

If you insult, I laugh, unruffled, merry, 

Invincibly good-humor'd, still I laugh: 

A stout, good soldier I, valorous to a fault, 

When once my stomach's up and supper's served: 

Tou know my humor, not one spark of pride, 

Such and the same forever to my friends : 

If cudgel'd, molten iron to the hammer 

Is not so malleable ; but if I cudgel, 

Bold as the thunder : is one to be blinded ? 

I am the lightning's flash : to be puff 'd up, 

I am the wind to blow him to the bursting : 

Choked, strangled ? I can do 't and save a halter : 

Would you break down his doors ? Behold an earthquake : 

Open and enter them ? A battering ram : 

Will you sit down to supper ? I'm your guest, 

Your very Fly, to enter without bidding : 

Would you move off ? You'll move a well as soon : 

I'm for all work, and though the job were stabbing, 

Betraying, false accusing, only say 

Do this, and it is done ! I stick at nothing ; 

They call me thunderbolt for my despatch: 

Friend of my friends am I : let actions speak me : 

I'm much too modest to commend myself. 

With the following beautiful lines on a fountain, near which a murder 
had been committed, we shall close our extracts from this interesting 
poet : 

Erewhile my gentle streams were wont to pour 
Along their banks a pure translucent tide; 
But now the waves are shrunk and channel dried, 
And Naiads know their once-loved haunt no more ; 
Since that sad moment when my verdant shore 
Was with the crimson hue of murder dyed. 
To cool the sparkling heat of wine we glide, 
But shrink abhorrent from the stain of gore. 

Aristophon was a contemporary of Antiphanes, but of his history 
nothing is farther known. The titles of nine of his comedies, and some 
important fragments, have been preserved ; and from these alone critics 
have been led to place him among the writers of the Middle Comedy. 

Love and matrimony — subjects so rarely introduced into the Old — 
became important personages in the Middle Comedy. The former 
appears to have opened a very flowery field, to fancy ; the latter seems 
generally to have been set up as the butt of ridicule and invective. 
Hence, on the topic of matrimony, the author says : 

A man may marry once without a crime, 
But cursed is he who weds a second time. 



388 CLEARCHUS. [Lect. XV. 

But, on the topic of love, as will appear from the following verses, h* 1 
is more playful and ingenious : 

Love, the disturber of the peace of heaven, 
And grand fomenter of Olympian feuds, 
"Was banish' d from the synod of the gods : 
They drove him down to earth at the expense 
Of us poor mortals, and curtail'd his wings 
To spoil his soaring, and secure themselves 
From his annoyance. Selfish, hard decree! 
For ever since he roams th' unquiet world, 
" The tyrant and despoiler of mankind. 

In one of his comedies, The Pythagorista, Aristophon ridicules the 
juggling tricks of Pythagoras, that prince of impostors, and thus humor- 
ously describes his disciples : 

So gaunt they seem, that famine never made 

Of lank Philippides so mere a shade ; 

Of salted tunny-fish their scanty dole, 

Their beverage, like the frog's, a standing pool, 

"With now and then a cabbage, at the best 

The leavings of the caterpillar's feast : 

No comb approaches their dishevel'd hair 

To rout the long-established myriads there; 

On the bare ground their bed, nor do they know 

A warmer coverlid than serves the crow: 

Flames the meridian sun without a cloud ? 

They bask like grasshoppers and chirp as loud: 

"With oil they never even feast their eyes; 

The luxury of stockings they despise, 

But barefoot as the crane still march along 

All night in chorus with the screech-owl's song.j 

Of Clearchus we know nothing farther than that he was a native of 
Athens, and a comic poet of high reputation. Athenseus has preserved 
the titles of three of his comedies and also a few fragments, of which 
the following on drunkenness is the most valuable : 

Could every drunkard, ere he sits to dine, 
Feel in his head the dizzy fumes of wine, 
No more would Bacchus chain the willing soul, 
But loathing horror, shun the poison'd bowl. 
But frantic joy foreruns the pains of fate, 
And real good we cannot calculate. 

Athenseus mentions, in connection with the comic poet last noticed, 
Crito?i, Crobylus, Demetrius, Damoxenus, and Diodorus. Of Criton 
nothing is known farther than that he was a native Athenian, and no- 
thing remains of his comedies but a few lines and three titles. Crobylus 



870A.C] DIODORUS. 389 

was also a native of Athens, and flourished about 324 A.C. Of his 
plays also nothing now remains but three titles and a few brief and un- 
important fragments. Demetrius was evidently a comic poet of great 
reputation, but it is very difficult to determine at what period he lived, 
or to which school of comedy he belonged. Clinton supposes there 
were two Demetrii, the one a poet of the Old comedy, and the other of 
the Middle ; and if this supposition be correct, it removes the difficulty 
of reconciling allusions in two of their fragments — the first being to 
events that transpired as early as 412 A.C, and the other, to the age 
of Seleucus, about 300 A.C. Dainoxenus was also a native of Athens. 
The titles of two of his plays are mentioned by Athengeus, who quotes 
a long passage from the one and a few lines from the other. 

Diodorus was a native of Sinope, a city of Pontus, and the birth-place 
of many eminent poets and philosophers. In an extant inscription his 
date is fixed at 354 A.C., and of his comedies, three titles, and a few frag- 
ments have been preserved. From the fragments we select the fol- 
lowing : 

When your foe dies, let all resentment cease, 

Make peace with death, and death shall grve you peace. 

This is my rule, and to this rule I'll hold, 
To choose my wife by merit, not by gold; 
For on that one election must depend 
Whether I wed a fury or a friend. 

Ephippus, of Athens, was a comic poet of the middle comedy, as we 
learn from the testimony of Suidas, and Antiochus of Alexandria, and 
also from the allusions in his fragments to Plato, and the Academic 
philosophers. Of his comedies twelve titles have been preserved, the 
Philyra being the most admired of his plays. This Philyra was the 
mother of Chiron the Centaur. From all accounts it would seem that 
Ephippus was one of the most celebrated poets of his age. Dionysius 
of Sinope, was the countryman, contemporary, and intimate friend of 
Diodorus. Of this poet we have but a single sentence, yet the maxim 
that it contains is so excellent, that we think it worth preserving : 

Either say something better than nothing, or say nothing 1 

Dionysius the celebrated tyrant of Syracuse, was also a writer of the 
middle comedy, and one of no mean pretensions. 

Epicrates, the Athenian comic poet, was a native of Ambrosia, the 
capital of Epirus, and flourished, according to Meineke, between 376 and 
348 A.C. His reputation is high amongst the writers of the class that 
we are at present considering, though, according to Athenaeus, he was an 



390 EPICRATES. [Lect. XV. 

imitator of the manner of Antiphanes, of Vnom he was some years the 
junior. The names of five of the comedies of Epicrates are still extant ; 
and the following remnant of a dialogue ridicules the frivolous disquisi- 
tions of the Academy in so pleasant a style of comic irony as to render 
it a fragment of the utmost value. The reader, acquainted with the 
original language will at once perceive a striking similitude in the man- 
ner to Aristophanes' remarks upon the occupations of Socrates' scholars 
in the comedy of The Clouds. 

A. I pray you, sir, (for I perceive you learned 
Iu these grave matters), let my ignorance suck 
Some profit from your courtesy, and tell me 
"What are you wise philosophers engaged in, 
Your Plato, Menedemus, and Speusippus ? 

What mighty mysteries have they in projection ? 
What new discoveries may the world expect 
From their profound researches ? I conjure you, 
By earth, our common mother, to impart them ! 

B. Sir, you shall know at our great festival 
I was myself their hearer, and so much 

As I there heard will presently disclose, 

So you will give it ears, for I might speak 

Of things perchance surpassing your belief, 

So strange they will appear ; but so it happened 

That these most sage Academicians sat 

In solemn consultation — on a cabbage. 

A. A cabbage ! what did they discover there ? 

B. Oh, sir, your cabbage hath its sex and gender, 
In provinces, prerogatives, and ranks, 

And, nicely handled, breeds as many questions 
As it does maggots. All the younger fry 
Stood dumb with expectation and respect, 
Wondering what this same cabbage should bring forth . 
The Lecturer eyed them round, whereat a youth 
Took heart, and breaking first the awful silence, 
Humbly craved leave to think — that it was round : 
The cause was now at issue, and a second 
Opined it was an herb — A third conceived 
With due submission it might be a plant — 
The difference methought was such that each 
Might keep his own opinion and be right ; 
But soon a bolder voice broke up the council, 
And, stepping forward, a Sicilian quack 
Told them their question was abuse of time, 
It was a cabbage, neither more nor less, 
And they were fools to prate so much about it- 
Insolent wretch ! amazement seized the troop, 

31amor and wrath and tumult raged amain, 

Till Plato, trembling for his own philosophy, 

Vnd calmly praying patience of the court, 

Took up the cabbage and adjourn'd the cause. 



3T0A.C.] MNESIMACHUS. 391 

We have still briefly to notice, as writers of the middle comedy, 
Eriphus, Euphron, Heniochus, Mnesimackus, Straton, Moschion, Nicos- 
tratus, Phamicides, Alexis, Sotades, Theophilus, Timocles, and Xenar- 
chus. 

Eriphus, according to Athenaeus, was a native of Athens, and a con- 
temporary of Antiphanes, from whose comedies he is represented to 
have extensively borrowed. A few small fragments, and the titles of 
three of his plays, comprise his entire remains. 

Euphron was another Athenian poet of this period, and one whose 
fame has outlived the works on which it was founded. Six of his com- 
edies only have bequeathed their names to us, and a very scanty portion 
of their contents. One of his plays was entitled Adelphi, and was, per- 
haps, the original whence Terence's comedy of the same name was 
copied. Athenaeus and Stobaeus have favored us with a few small relics 
of Euphron's poetry ; and in the following couplet there is a tender, me- 
lancholy and touching simplicity : 

Tell me, all-judging Jove, if this be fair, 
To make so short a life so full of care ? 

The following brief apostrophe contains, it will be acknowledged, a 
very spirited and striking turn of thought : 

Wretch ! find new gods to witness to new lies, 
Thy perjuries have made the old too wise ! 

The ancients had an idea that a man who paid little attention to his 
own affairs, was not to be entrusted with the affairs of the State ; and 
hence such sentiments as the following were not unfrequent amongst the 
writers for the stage : 

Let not his fingers touch the public chest, 

Who, by his own profusion, is distress'd; 

For long, long years of care it needs must take 

•To heal those wounds which one short hour will make. 

Heniochus, also a native Athenian, was a writer of a grave, senten- 
tious cast, and one who did not hesitate to give a personal name to one 
of his comedies, written professedly against the character of Thorucion, a 
certain military prefect in those times, and a notorious traitor to his 
country. His comedies were very numerous, and the titles of fifteen are 
still preserved. From one of these a curious fragment has been saved ; 
but as it is rather of a political than of a dramatic complexion, it would 
not, perhaps, here be appropriate. 

Mnesimachus is mentioned both by iElian and Athenaeus as an eminent 



392 STRATOK [Lect. XV. 

writer of the middle comedy ; and by the samples we have of his plays, 
few as they are, we may see that he was a minute describer of the famil- 
iar manners and characters of the age in which he lived. He was doubt- 
less a writer of a peculiar cast — a dealer in low and loquacious dialogue 
— a strong, coarse colorist, and one who, if time had spared his works, 
would probably have imparted to us more of the Costuma, as it is called, 
than any of his contemporaries. Few modern authors could describe, or 
actors delineate, a company of banditti or bravos at their meal in bolder 
caricature, than is displayed in the following sketch : 

Dost know whom thou'rt to sup with, friend? I'll tell thee; 

With gladiators, not with peaceful guests ; 

Instead of knives we're armed with naked swords, 

And swallow firebrands in the place of food: 

Daggers of Crete are served us for confections, 

And for a plate of peas, a fricassee 

Of scatter'd spears : the cushions we repose on 

Are shields and breastplates, at our feet a pile 

Of slings and arrows, and our foreheads wreath'd 

With military ensigns, not with myrtle. 

Straton, the next Athenian writer of the middle comedy, supplies us 
with the names of two plays, and the small bequest of a single fragment. 
This bequest is, however, an acceptable one, as it recounts part of a dia- 
logue, which, to a certain degree, gives some display of character, of a 
facetious comic cast, in the range of familiar life. The speaker is some 
master of a family, who is complaining to his companion in the scene, of 
the whimsical, conceited humor of his cook : 

I've harbor'd a He Sphinx and not a cook, 
For by the gods he talked to me in riddles, 
And coin'd new words that pose me to interpret. 
No sooner had he enter'd on his office 
Than, eyeing me from head to foot, he cries — 
' How many mortals hast thou bid to supper ?' 
Mortals ! quoth I, what tell you me of mortals ? 
Let Jove decide on their mortality ; 
You're crazy, sure! none by that name are bidden. 
' No Table Usher ; no one to officiate 
As master of the Courses ?' — No such person : 
Moschion and Niceratus and Philinus, 
These are my guests and friends, and amongst these 
You'll find no table-decker as I take it. 

' Gods 1 is it possible ?' cried he : Most certain, 
I patiently replied. He swell'd and huff'd, 
As if forsooth I had done him heinous wrong, 
And robb'd him of his proper dignity ; 
Ridiculous conceit! — 'What offering makest thou 
To Erysichthon V he demanded: None — 



370A.C] MOSCHION. 393 

'Shall not the wide-horn'd ox be fell'd?' cries he. 

I sacrifice no ox — 'Nor yet a wether?' 

Not I, by Jove ; a simple sheep perhaps. 

'And what's a wether but a sheep?' cries he. 

I'm a plain man, my friend, and therefore speak 

Plain language. — ' What ! I speak as Homer does ; 

And sure a cook may use like privilege, 

And more than a blind poet !' — Not with me ; 

I'll have no kitchen Homers in my house ! 

So pray discharge yourself! — Thus said, we parted. 

Moschion, according to the authority of Clemens Alexandrinus and 
Stobasus, was a writer of the middle comedy, and a dramatist of a very 
moral and pathetic turn. His fragments fully sustain this character. 
The titles of three of his comedies remain, one of which is Themistocles ; 
and probably the following fragment, preserved by Stobasus, may refer to 
the exile of that great man, when a supplicant at the court of Admetus, 
king of Molossus : 

The proudest once in glory, mind, and race, 

The first of monarchs, of mankind the grace, 

Now wandering, outcast, desolate and poor, 

A wretched exile on a foreign shore, 

With miserable aspect bending low, 

Holds in his trembling hand the suppliant bough : 

Unhappy proof, how false the flattering light, 

Which Fortune's blazing torch holds forth to sight ! 

Now, not the meanest stranger passing by 

But greets the fallen hero with a sigh ; 

Perhaps with gentle accents soothes his woe, 

And lets the kindly tear of pity flow ; 

For where's the heart so hardened and so rude, 

As not to melt at life's vicissitude ? 

The tender and religious sentiments conveyed in the fragment which 
follows, and which was preserved by Clemens, deserve particular atten- 
tion, and would seem to indicate that Moschion indulged in the tragic, as 
well as in the comic vein : 

Let the earth cover and protect its dead! 
And let man's breath thither return in peace 
From whence it came; his spirit to the skies, 
His body to the clay of which 'twas formed, 
Imparted to him as a loan for life, 
Which he and all must render back again 
To earth, the common mother of mankind. 

Again, in a strain yet more elevated — 

Wound not the soul of a departed man ! 
'Tis impious cruelty ; let justice strike 



394 ALEXIS. [Lect. XV. 

The living, but in mercy spare the dead. 
And why pursue the shadow that is past ? 
Why slander the deaf earth that cannot hear, 
The dumb that cannot utter ? When the soul 
No longer takes account of human wrongs, 
Nor joys nor sorrows touch the mouldering heart, 
As well may you give feelings to the tomb, 
As what it covers — both alike defy you. 

Nieostratus, the third son of Aristophanes, is the next comic poet to 
be noticed, and, according to Athenseus, Suidas, Laertius, and others, he 
was a writer of great reputation. His comedies are said to have been 
found, after his death, in a chest, where they had long been concealed, 
and their absence much regretted. The titles of nineteen of his plays 
are still known, and we are farther informed that he was so excellent an 
actor, that it became a proverb of honor to pronounce upon any other 
capital performer, that — He played in the style of Nicostratus. It is a 
source of deep regret that the following brief fragment is the only pas- 
sage of this interesting poet's writing worth preserving :— 

If in prattling from morning till night 

A sign of our wisdom there be, 
The swallows are wiser by right, 

For they prattle much faster than we. 

Of Phcenicides, little is now known farther than that he was a native 
of Megara, and flourished towards the close of the middle comedy. 
Three titles of comedies by this author have been preserved, and a frag- 
ment, very important in a literary point of view ; but as it is the recital 
of a courtezan, though full of comic humor, it is not suited to our pur- 
pose. 

Alexis, perhaps the most distinguished writer of the middle comedy, 
was a native of Thurium, in Magna G-raecia, and was born about 394 A.C. 
In childhood, however, he was carried by his parents to Athens, and there, 
as soon as he had reached mature age, was admitted to all the privileges 
of an Athenian citizen, and enrolled in one of the tribes. He was the uncle 
and instructor of Menander, and the first to discover the future poet's 
great genius. He appears, according to Athenaeus, to have been rather 
addicted to the pleasures of the table, though the following fragment, 
preserved by the same critic, conveys the strongest marks of detestation 
that language can supply of the very vice to which Athenaeus informs us 
he was a slave : 

You, sir, a Cyrenian, as I take you, 

Look at your sect of desperate voluptuaries ! 

There's Diodorus — beggary is too good for him — 

A vast inheritance in two short years, 

Where is it ? Squander'd, vanish' d, gone forever, 



S94A.C] ALEXIS. 395 

So rapid "was his dissipation — Stop ! 
Stop, my good friend, you cry ; not quite so fast ; 
This man went fairly and softly to his ruin; 
What talk you of two years ? As many days, 
Two little days, were long enough to finish 
Young Epicharides ; he had some soul, 
And drove a merry pace to his undoing — 
Marry 1 if a kind of surfeit would surprise us, 
Ere we sit down to earn it, such prevention 
"Would come most opportune to save the trouble 
Of a sick stomach and an aching head : 
But whilst the punishment is out of sight, 
And the full chalice at our lips, we drink, 
Drink all to-day, to-morrow fast and mourn, 
Sick, and all-o'er opprest with nauseous fumes; 
Such is the drunkard's curse, and hell itself 
Cannot devise a greater. — Oh, that Nature 
Might quit us of this overbearing burden, 
This tyrant-god, the belly ! Take that from us, 
With all its bestial appetites, and man, 
Exonerated man, shall be all soul. 

Alexis lived to a very advanced age, and according to Plutarch, he ex- 
pired upon the stage while being crowned as victor in the comic contest. 
Though he belonged to the middle comedy, yet the great length to which 
his life was prolonged, and the energy with which he wrote to the last, 
made him, for more than thirty years, the contemporary of Menander, 
Philemon, Philippides, and Diphilus. He was one of the most prolific 
poets of the Greek stage, having written, according to Suidas, two hun- 
dred and forty-five comedies, the titles of one hundred and thirteen of 
which have been preserved. This proves that he possessed a very co- 
pious vein of invention, and the fragments which remain out of the gen- 
eral wreck of his works, indicates the richness of that vein. The works 
of such a master were of themselves a study ; and as Menander formed 
himself upon his instructions, we cannot fail to conceive very highly of 
the preceptor from the acknowledged excellence of the pupil. Aristotle 
records an answer made by Alexis to an inquisitive fellow, who observed 
him in his latter years slowly crawling along the streets of Athens, and 
demanded ' what he was doing.' i Nothing,' replied the feeble veteran, 
1 and of that very disease I am dying.' Stobaeus has the same anecdote, 
and we think it unlikely that a man who preserved so vigorous a mind as 
Plutarch says he did, to extreme old age, could have been an habitual 
glutton. Indeed, the irony of the following lines < on the Epicureans is 
unmistakable : 

I sigh'd for ease, and, weary of my lot, 
Wish'd to exchange it ; in this mood I stroll'd 
Up to the citadel three several days : 
And there I found a bevy of preceptors 



396 ALEXIS. [Lect. XV 

For my new system, thirty in a group ; 
All with one voice prepared to tutor me — 
Eat, drink, and revel in the joys of love ! 
For pleasure is the wise man's sovereign good. 

A. Gellius informs us that Alexis formed the plot of one of his comedies 
upon the life and actions of Pythagoras; and his choice certainly de- 
serves to be commended ; for we cannot conceive a happier fable for the 
use of an ingenious author, nor any that would afford a more fruitful field 
for facetious raillery than the extravagant and juggling tricks and con- 
trivances of that impostor's story afford. 

Vitruvius, in the beginning of his sixth book, has the following quota- 
tion from on£ of the dramas of Alexis, which is of considerable historical 
importance : 

Whereas all other States of Greece compel 
The children of poor parents to support 
Those who begot them, we of Athens make 
The law imperative in such children only 
As are beholden to their parents for 
The blessing of a liberal education. 



Matrimony and Love were, however, his favorite themes ; and he cer- 
tainly must have been very much out of humor with the sex when he 
wrote the following lines, or else the Athenian wives must have been 
mere Xantippes to deserve them : — 

Nor house, nor coffers, nor whatever else 

Is dear and precious, should be watched so closely, 

As she whom you call wife. Sad lot is ours, 

Who barter life and all its free delights, 

To be the slaves of woman, and are paid 

Her bridal portion in the luckless coin 

Of sorrow and vexation. A man's wrath 

Is milk and honey to a woman's rage; 

He can be much offended and forgive ; 

She never pardons those she most offends. 

What she should do she slights, what she should not,- 

Hotly pursues: false to each virtuous point, 

And only in her wickedness sincere. 

Who but a lunatic, would wed, and be 
Wilfully wretched? Better to endure 
The shame of poverty and all its taunts, 
Rather than this. The reprobate, on -whom 
The censor sets his hand, is justly doomed 
Unfit to govern others ; but the wretch 
Who weds, no longer can command himself; 
Nor hath his woe a period but in death. 



355A.C] SOTADES. 397 

From this gloomy picture of matrimony we turn to the following vivid 
and pleasing description of Love : 

/ The man who holds true pleasure to consist 

In pampering his vile body, and defies 
Love's great divinity, rashly maintains 
"Weak impious war with an immortal God. 
The gravest master that the schools can boast 
Ne'er trained his pupils to such discipline 
As Love his votaries. And where is he, 
So stubborn and determinedly stiff 
But shall, at some time, bend his knee to Love, 
And make obeisance at his mighty shrine. 

One day, as slowly sauntering from the port, 
A thousand cares conflicting in my breast, 
Thus I began to commune with myself — 
Methinks these painters misapply their art, 
And never knew the being which they draw; 
For mark their many false conceits of Love. 
Love is nor male nor female, man nor god, 
Nor with intelligence, nor yet without it, 
But a strange compound of all these, uniting 
In one mixed essence many opposites: 
A manly courage with a woman's fear, 
The madman's frenzy in a reasoning mind, 
The strength of steel, the fury of a beast, 
The ambition of a hero. Something 'tis, 
But by Minerva and the gods I swear, 
I know not what this nameless something is. 

Sotades, whom we are next to notice, was a native Athenian, an elegant 
writer, and a^reat favorite with the theatre-going public. We have the 
titles of two of his\comedies, and some fragments, one of which, amongst 
many other instances, shows how rapidly the Middle Comedy of Athens 
was now verging towards the grave and sentimental character of the 
New. The fragment to which we here allude, is the following : 

Is there a man, just, honest, nobly born ? 
Malice shall hunt him down. Does wealth attend him ? 
Trouble is hard behind. Conscience direct ? 
Beggary is at his heels. Is he an artist? 
Farewell, repose 1 An equal, upright judge ? 
Eeport shall blast his virtues. Is he strong? 
Sickness shall sap his strength. Account that day 
Which brings no new mischance, a day of rest. 
For what is man ? What matter is he made of ? 
How born ? What is he, and what shall he be ? 
What an unnatural parent is this world, 
To foster none but villains, and destroy 



398 TIMOCLES. [Lect XV. 

All who are benefactors to mankind ! 

"What was the fate of Socrates ? A prison, 

A dose of poison; tried, condemn' d, and killed. 

How died Diogenes ? As a dog dies, 

With a raw morsel in his hungry throat. 

Alas for iEschylus ! Musing he walked — 

The soaring eagle dropp'd a tortoise down, 

And crushed that brain, where tragedy had birth. 

A paltry grape-stone chok'd the Athenian Bee. 

Mastiffs of Thrace devour'd Euripides — 

And god-like Homer, woe the while ! was starved. 

Thus life, blind life, teems with perpetual woes. 

Theophilus, another Athenian comic poet of this period of great 
popularity, forms a remarkable contrast to Sotades. Of the comedies 
ascribed to him we have seven titles and a few fragments. The frag- 
ments of this poet are of a very lively cast, and the following, on the 
fertile subject of love, certainly deserves to be preserved as one of the 
beauties of the Greek stage : 

If love be folly as the schools would prove, 
The man must lose his wits who falls in love ; 
Deny him love, you doom the wretch to death, 
And then it follows he must lose his breath. 
Good sooth ! there is a young and dainty maid 
I dearly love, a minstrel she by trade; 
"What then? Must I defer to pedant rule, 
And own that love transforms me to a fool? 
Not I, so help me! by the gods I swear, 
The nymph I love is fairest of the fair 1 
Wise, witty, dearer to a poet's sight 
Than piles of money on an author's night ; 
Must I not love her then? Let the dull sot, 
Who made the law, obey it ! I will not. 

Timocles, the last Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy but one, 
who lived at a period when the. revival of political energy, in consequence 
of the encroachments of Philip, restored to the Middle Comedy much of 
the vigor and real aim of the Old, is conspicuous for the freedom with 
which he discussed public, men and measures, as well as for the number 
of his dramas, and the purity of his style, in which scarcely any departure 
from the best standard of Attic diction can be detected. He nourished 
between 355 A.C. and 324 A.C., and, like Antiphanes, made sarcastic 
allusions to the vehement spirit and rhetorical boldness of Demosthenes 
and the other orators who were charged with having received money from 
Harpalus. Being, in the beginning of his career, a contemporary of An- 
tiphanes, and at its close, of Menander, Timocles may properly be re- 
garded as the connecting link between the Middle Comedy and the New. 

It may be proper to remark that there were two comic poets of this 



355A.C.] TIMOCLES. 399 

name, to one of whom Suidas ascribes six comedies, and to the other 
eleven ; and as the fragments of both are quoted indiscriminately, we 
shall introduce one to represent each. The first is a description of the 
illustrious orator Demosthenes, and we shall presume it is a fragment of 
one of the comedies of the Athenian Timocles : 

Bid rne say anything rather than this; 
But on this theme Demosthenes himself 
Shall sooner check the torrent of his speech 
Than I — Demosthenes ! that angry orator, 
That bold Briareus, whose tremendous throat, 
Charged to the teeth with battering rams and spears, 
Beats down opposers : brief in speech was he, 
But, cross'd in argument, his threatening eyes 
Plash'd fire, while thunder vollicd from his lips. 

The other fragment is a complimentary allusion to the powers of Tra- 
gedy, and is the only instance of the kind that the Greek comedy now 
furnishes. This passage is particularly valuable, not only for its intrinsic 
merit, but for the handsome tribute which it pays to the moral uses of 
the tragic drama : 

Nay, my good friend, but hear me. I confess 

Man is the child of sorrow, and this world, 

In which we breathe, hath cares enough to plague us. 

But it hath means withal to soothe these cares, 

And he who meditates on others' woes 

Shall in that meditation lose his own ; 

Call, then, the tragic poet to your aid, 

Hear him, and take instruction from the stage; 

Let Telephus appear ; behold a prince 

A spectacle of poverty and pain, 

Wretched in both. — And what if you are poor ? 

Are you a demigod? are you the son 

Of Hercules ? begone ! complain no more. 

Doth your mind struggle with distracting thoughts ? 

Do your wits wander ? are you mad ? Alas ! 

So wa3 Alcmseon, whilst the world adored 

His father as their god. Your eyes are dim: 

What then ? the eyes of (Edipus were dark, 

Totally dark. You mourn a son? he's dead: 

Turn to the tale of Mobe for comfort, 

And match your loss with hers. You're lame of foot ; 

Compare it with the foot of Philoctetes, 

And make no more complaint. But you are old, 

Old and unfortunate. Consult CEneus : 

Hear what a king endured, and learn content. 

Sum up your miseries, number up your sighs. 

The tragic stage shall give you tear for tear, 

And wash out all afflictions but its own. 



400 THE NEW COMEDY. [Lect. XV. 

With tlie Athenian comic poet, Xe?iarchus, we conclude our remarks 
upon the writers of the Middle Comedy. The titles of eight of his 
plays, and a few brief fragments comprise his entire remains. Amongst 
these fragments, the following short but spirited apostrophe is all that is 
suited to our purpose : 

Ah, faithless -woman! -when you swear, 
I register your oaths in air. 



THE NEW COMEDY. 

The order of the comic drama of Athens to which our attention is still 
to be directed prevailed from the period of the accession of Alexander 
the G-reat to the throne of Macedon, 336 A.C., to the death of Menander, 
291 A.C. — about forty-five years — when the curtain may figuratively be 
said to have dropped upon all the glories of the Athenian stage. Though 
the last, it was yet a brilliant era ; for in it flourished Menander, Phile- 
mon, Diphilus, Apollodorus, Philippides, and Posidippus — poets no less 
celebrated for the luxuriancy than for the elegance of their genius — all 
writers of the New Comedy, which, if it had not all the art and fire of the 
old satirical drama, produced in times of greater public freedom, was, 
doubtless, far superior to it in delicacy, regularity, and decorum. All 
attacks, as we have already observed, upon living characters ceased with 
what is properly denominated the Old Comedy ; the writers of the Mid- 
dle, contented themselves with venting their raillery upon the works of 
their dramatic predecessors ; but the New Comedy was the comedy of 
manners, and resembled, in all respects, the comedy which afterwards 
prevailed amongst the Romans, and which now prevails in Great Britain, 
France, and the United States. 

The New Comedy, says Schlegel, in a certain point of view, may be 
described, as the Old Comedy tamed down ; but, in speaking of works of 
genius, tameness does not usually pass for praise. The loss incurred in 
the interdict laid upon the old, unrestricted freedom of mirth, the newer 
comedians sought to compensate by throwing in a touch of earnestness 
borrowed from tragedy, as well in the form of representation, and the 
connection of the whole, as in the impressions which they aimed at pro- 
ducing. We have seen how tragic poetry, in its first epoch, borrowed its 
tone from its ideal elevation, and came nearer to common reality, both 
in the characters and in the tone of the dialogue, but especially as it 
aimed at conveying useful instruction on the proper conduct of civil and 
domestic life, in all their several consequences. This turn towards utility 
Aristophanes has invariably commended in Euripides. Euripides was 
the forerunner of the New Comedy : the poets of this species admired 



342A.C.] MENANDER. 401 

him especially, and acknowledged him for their master. Nay, so great is 
this affinity of tone and spirit, between Euripides and the poets of the 
New Comedy, that apophthegms of Euripides have been ascribed to Me- 
nander, and vice versa. On the contrary, we find among the fragments of 
Menander maxims of consolation, which rise in a striking manner even 
into the tragic tone. The New Comedy, therefore, is a mixture of sport 
and earnest. The poet no longer makes a sport of poetry and the world ; 
he does not resign himself to a mirthful enthusiasm, but he seeks the 
sportive character in his subject ; he depicts in human characters and 
situations that which gives occasion to mirth : in a word, whatever is 
pleasant and ridiculous. 

Menander, the most distinguished poet of the New Comedy, was the 
son of Diopeithes and Hegesistrate, and was born at Athens 342 A.C. 
He was the nephew of Alexis, the comic poet, on his father's side, and 
we may naturally suppose that he derived from his uncle his taste for the 
comic drama, and was instructed by him in its rules of composition. His 
character also, must have been greatly influenced and formed by his in- 
timacy with Theophrastus the peripatetic, and Epicurus, the former 
being his teacher, and the latter his intimate friend. That his tastes and 
sympathies were altogether with the philosophy of Epicurus is proved, 
among many other indications, by his elegant epigram on ' Epicurus and 
Themistocles.' From Theophrastus he must have derived much of that 
skill in the discrimination of character which we so much admire in that 
philosopher, and which formed the great charm of the comedies of 
Menander. His master's attention to external elegance and comfort he 
not only imitated, but, as was natural in a man of elegant person, a joy- 
ous spirit, and a serene and easy temper, he carried it to the extreme of 
luxury and effeminacy. 

The personal beauty of Menander is proverbial, though, according to 
Suidas, his vision was somewhat disturbed. He is represented in works 
of sculpture which still exist, of one of which, preserved in the Vatican, 
Schlegel gives the following description: — 'In the excellent portrait- 
statues of two of the most famous comedians, Menander and Posidippus, 
the physiognomy of the Greek New Comedy seems to me to be almost 
visibly and personally expressed. They are seated in arm-chairs, clad 
with extreme simplicity, and with a roll in the hand, with that ease and 
careless self-possession which always marks the conscious superiority of 
the master in that maturity of years which befits the calm and impartial 
observation which comedy requires, but sound and active, and free from 
all symptoms of decay ; we may discern in them that hale and pithy 
vigor of body which bears witness to an equally vigorous constitution of 
mind and temper ; no lofty enthusiasm, but no folly or extravagance ; 
on the contrary, the earnestness of wisdom dwells in those brows, wrinkled 



26 



402 MEN AND ER. [Lect. XV. 

not with care, but with the exercise of thought, while, in the searching 
eye, and in the mouth, ready for a smile, there is a light irony which 
cannot be mistaken !' 

The moral character of Menander has been greatly aspersed by Suidas, 
Alciphron, and others, but Meineke has defended it with very consid- 
erable success. One thing is certain, that his comedies, so far as we 
are now able to judge, contain nothing offensive, at least to the taste of 
his own and the following ages — none of the purest it must be admitted 
— as they were frequently acted at private banquets. Whether their 
being eagerly read, as Ovid affirms they were, by the youth of both 
sexes, on account of the love scenes with which they abound, is any 
confirmation of their innocence, may at least be doubted. 
. Of the actual events of Menander's life very little is known. He en- 
joyed the friendship of Demetrius Phalereus, whose attention appears 
to have been first drawn to him by admiration of his works. This 
intimacy was attended, however, with danger as well as honor, for, when 
Demetrius Phalereus was expelled from Athens in 307 A.C. by Demetrius 
Poliorcetes, Menander became a mark for the sycophants, and would 
have been put to death had it not been for the intercession of Teles- 
phorus, the son-in-law of Demetrius. Ptolemy Lagus, king of Egypt, was 
also one of his admirers, and invited him to the court of Alexandria ; but 
Menander declined the proffered honor. A friendly correspondence was, 
however, according to Suidas, long maintained between the king and the 
poet. The death of this eminent writer was as melancholy as his life 
had been brilliant. He was drowned while bathing in the Piraean 
harbor ; and we learn from Alciphron, that, as a mark of distinguished 
honor, he was buried by the side of the road that leads from the Pi- 
raeus to Athens. 

Notwithstanding all antiquity concurs in placing Menander at the 
head of the comic writers of his time, yet his contemporary and rival 
poets so frequently triumphed over him, that, out of one hundred and 
nine comedies, he obtained but eight prizes. His preference for elegant 
exhibitions of character above coarse jesting, may have been the reason 
why he was not so great a favorite with the common people as his prin- 
cipal rival, Philemon, who, it is more than intimated by several ancient 
authors, used unfair means of gaining popularity. Menander appears, 
however, to have borne the popular neglect very lightly, in the con- 
sciousness of his own superiority ; and on one occasion, when he happened 
to meet Philemon, he is said to have asked him, ' Pray, Philemon, do 
not you blush when you gain a victory over me ?' 

Menander is remarkable for the elegance with which he threw into the 
form of single verses, or short sentences, the maxims of that practical 
wisdom in the affairs of common life which forms so important a feature 



342A.C.] MENANDER. 403 

of the New Comedy. Such passages must necessarily suffer essentially 
in the translation, hut the following are very close to the original : 

You say, not always wisely, Know thyself: 
Know others, ofttimes, is the better maxim. 

Of all bad things with which mankind are curs'd, 
Their own bad tempers surely are the worst. 

What pity 'tis, when happy Nature rears 

A noble pile, that Fortune should o'erthrow itl 

Abundance is a blessing to the wise ; 

The use of riches in discretion lies. 

Learn this, ye men of wealth — A heavy purse, 

In a fool's pocket, is a heavy curse. 

If you would know of what frail stuff you're made, 
Go to the tombs of the illustrious dead ; 
There rest the bones of kings, there tyrants rot ; 
There sleep the rich, the noble, and the wise ! 
There pride, ambition, beauty's fairest form — 
All dust alike, compound one common mass: 
Reflect on these, and in them see yourself. 

In the more extensive fragments which remain of the poetry of 
Menander, little else is seen than the most unfavorable delineations of 
human character. So far from finding those facetious and sprightly sal- 
lies to be expected from a comic writer — those voluptuous descriptions to 
which Pliny alludes, or any fragments of the love-scenes of which Ovid 
tells us — we meet nothing but a melancholy display of the miseries, the 
enormities, and the repinings of mankind. What, for instance, could be 
more gloomy and misanthropic than the following strain of discontent : 

Suppose some god should say — 'Die when thou wilt, 

Mortal, expect another life on earth; 

And, for that life, make choice of all creation 

What thou wilt be; dog, sheep, goat, man, or horse 1 , 

For live again thou must; it is thy fate; 

Choose only in what form;' there, thou art free! 

So help me Crato, I would fairly answer — 

Let me be all things, anything but man'.' 

He only, of all creatures, feels affliction. 

The generous horse is valued for his worth, 

And dog by merit, is preferred to dog; 

The warrior cock is pampered for his courage, 

And awes the baser brood. But what is man ? 

Truth, virtue, valor, how do they avail him? 

Of this world's good, the first and greatest share 

Is flattery's prize: the informer takes the next, 

And bare-faced knavery garbles what is left. 



404 MENANDER. [Lect. XV. 

Td rather be an ass than "what I am, 

And see these villains lord it o'er their betters. 

The fragment which follows is in the same tone, though it is colored a 
little nearer to the hue of comedy : 

All creatures are more blest in their condition, 

And in their natures, worthier than man. 

Look at yon ass ! A sorry beast you'll say, 

And such, in truth, he is — poor, hapless thing ! 

Yet these, his sufferings, spring not from himself, 

For all that nature gave him he enjoys; 

"Whilst we, besides our necessary ills, 

Make ourselves sorrows of our own begetting. 

If a man sneeze, we're sad — for that's ill-luck : 

If he traduce us, we run mad with rage ; 

A dream, a vapor, throws us into terrors, 

And let the night-owl hoot, we melt with fear: 

Anxieties, opinions, laws, ambition, 

All these are torments we may thank ourselves for. 

The following contemptuous ridicule upon the Pagan ceremony of lus- 
tration, shows that Menander had a much higher notion of the being and 
providence of (rod, than the vulgar herd of heathens were known to 
entertain : 

If your complaints were serious, 'twould be well 
You sought a serious cure; but for weak minds 
"Weak medicines suffice. G-o, call around you 
The women with their purifying water; 
Drug it with salt and lentils, and then take 
A treble sprinkling from the holy mess; 
Now search your heart ; if that reproach you not, 
Then, and then only, you are truly pure. 

In Menander and the other comic poets of Greece, women were gener- 
ally spoken of with the utmost disrespect, from which we infer that the 
Athenians, with all their refinement, had little perception of the purity 
and elevation of female character. To exemplify this remark we give the 
following passage : 

If such the sex, was not the sentence just, 

That riveted Prometheus to his rock? 

Why ? For what crime ? A spark, a little spark ; 

But oh, ye gods ! how infinite the mischief — 

That little spark gave being to a woman, 

And let in a new race of plagues to curse us. 

"Where is the man that weds ? Show me the wretch ; 

Woe to his lot! — Insatiable desires, 

His nuptial bed defiled, poisonings and plots, 



342 A.C.] MENANDER. 40,5 

And maladies untold — these are the fruits 
Of marriage — these the blessings of a wife. 

The poet who, in the language of Cumberland, can thus lend his wit to 
libel the greatest blessing of life, may well be ingenious in depreciating 
life itself : 

The lot of all most fortunate is his, 

"Who, having staid just long enough on earth 

To feast his sight with the fair face of Nature, 

Sun, sea, and clouds, and heaven's bright starry fires, 

Drops without pain into an early grave. 

For what is life, the longest life of man, 

But the same scene repeated o'er and o'er ? 

A few more lingering days to be consumed 

In throngs and crowds, with sharpers, knaves, and thieves ; — 

Erom such the speediest riddance is the best. 

' As the passages hitherto introduced from this poet have represented 
him in the character of a misanthropist, it is no more than justice that 
we should now exhibit him as a moralist ; and if the following fragment 
suggests no new ideas upon the subject of Envy, it will at least serve to 
satisfy us that mankind in all ages have held that despicable passion in 
the same estimation : 

Thou seem'st to me, young man, not to perceive 
That every thing contains within itself 
The seeds and sources of its own corruption : 
The cankering rust corrodes the brightest steel ; 
The moth frets out your garment, and the worm 
Eats its slow way into the solid oak; 
But Envy, of all evil things the worst, 
The same to-day, to-morrow, and forever, 
Saps and consumes the heart in which it lurks. 

In the next fragment an old man, as will be perceived, is reproved for 
the vice of covetousness. Tn the manner of the reproof there is a deli- 
cacy that well becomes both the age and condition of the speaker ; for he 
is not only a youth, but the son of the character whom he addresses. 
This fragment is from the comedy entitled Dyscolus, or The Churl : 

"Weak is the vanity that boasts of riches, 

For they are fleeting things ; were they not such, 

Could they be yours to all succeeding time, 

'Twere wise to let none share in the possession ; 

But if whate'er you have is held of fortune, 

And not of right inherent, why, my father, 

Why with such niggard jealousy engross r 

"What the next hour may ravish from your grasp, 

And cast into some worthless favorite's lap ? 

Snatch then the swift occasion while 'tis yours; 



406 PHILEMON. [Lect. XV. 

Put this unstable boon to noble uses ; 

Foster the wants of men, impart your wealth, 

And purchase friends ; 'twill be more lasting treasure, 

And, when misfortune comes, your best resource. 

The following fragment, a relic of The Minstrel, is of a more comic 
sort, and is pointed at the same vice : 

Ne'er trust me, Phanias, but I thought till now, 
That you rich fellows had the knack of sleeping 
A good sound nap, that held you for the night; 
And not like us poor rogues, who toss and turn, 
Sighing, Ah me ! and grumbling at our duns : 
But now I find in spite of all your money, 
You rest no better than your needy neighbors, 
And sorrow is the common lot of all. 

We have but one more specimen to introduce of the poetry of Menan- 
der ; but this is the more valuable from its having been quoted by Plu- 
tarch for the consolatory advice it contains, and addressed to his friend 
Apollonius. The lines in italics, quoted from Shakspeare's Julius Caesar, 
not only correspond with the exact meaning of the original, but are also 
apposite as a quotation from a tragic poet, Menander himself having ap- 
plied the words of some one of the writers of tragedy, probably Euripi- 
des: 

If you, Trophimus, and you alone 

Of all your mother's sons have Nature's charter, 

For privilege of pleasures uncontrol'd, 

With full exemption from the strokes of Fortune, 

And that some god hath ratified the grant, 

You then with cause may vent your loud reproach. 

For he hath broke your charter and betray'd you; 

But if you live and breathe the common air 

On the same terms as we do, then I tell you, 

And tell it in the tragic poet's words— 
Of your philosophy you make no use, 
If you give place to accidental evils — 

The sum of which philosophy is this — 

You are a man, and therefore Fortune's sport, 

This hour exalted and the next abased : 

You are a man, and though by Nature weak, 

By nature arrogant, climbing to heights 

That mock your reach and crush you in the fall. 

Nor was the blessing you have lost the best 

Of all life's blessings, nor is your misfortune 

The worst of its afflictions ; therefore, Trophimus, 

Make it not such by overstrained complaints, 

But to your disappointment suit your sorrow. 

Philemon, the first in the order of time, and the second in celebrity, 
of the Athenian comic poets of the New Comedy, was the son of Damon, 



360A.C] PHILEMON. 407 

and was born at Soli in Cilicia, about 360 A.C. He removed, at an early 
age, however, to Athens, and soon after had all the privileges of citizen- 
ship extended to him. He lived to the extraordinary age of one hundred 
and one years, and composed ninety-seven comedies — a competent num- 
ber, it must be acknowledged, though not to be compared to the number 
of Menander's productions, who, in half that time wrote one hundred 
and nine. 

The longevity of Philemon was the result of great temperance and a 
placid frame of mind. Frugal to a degree that subjected him to the charge 
of avarice, he never weakened his faculties and constitution by excess ; 
and he summed up all his wishes in the following rational and moderate 
petition to heaven, which throws a most favorable light upon his charac- 
ter : — < I pray for health in the first place ; in the next for success in my 
undertakings; thirdly, for a cheerful heart; and lastly, to be out of 
debt to all mankind.' This temperate petition seems to have been 
literally granted. He was blessed with a long and healthful life : he 
was successful in his undertakings to a degree which posterity seems 
to think was above his merits ; and he triumphed over all his competitors, 
more, perhaps, through the suavity of his manners, than from any actual 
superiority of his talents. That he was of a gay and happy spirit there 
is every reason to believe ; and his economy secured to him that inde- 
pendent competency, which put him in possession of the final object of 
his wishes. 

As Philemon lived in constant serenity of mind, so, according to 
iElian, he died without pain of body; for, having called together a 
number of his friends to the reading of a play, which he had just finished, 
and sitting, as was the custom in that serene climate, under the open 
canopy of heaven, an unexpected shower of rain fell upon the company 
just when the veteran poet had entered into the third act and the very 
warmest interest of the fable. His hearers, disappointed by this unlucky 
meek to their entertainment, interceded with him for the remainder on 

le day following, to which he readily assented ; and a large company 
>eing then assembled, whom the fame of the rehearsal had brought 

)gether, they sat a considerable length of time in eager expectation of 
the poet's arrival, till wearied out with waiting, and unable to account 
for his want of punctuality, some of his intimate friends were dispatched 
in quest of him — who, on entering his chamber, found the old man dead 
m his couch, in his usual meditating posture, his features placid and 
3omposed, and with every symptom that indicated a death without pain 
)r struggle. His death occurred 262 A.C. 

The fragments which we possess of Philemon's poetry are, in general, 

)f a sentimental, tender cast ; and though they enforce soun^ and strict 

lorality, yet no one instance occurs of that gloomy misanthropy, that 

larsh and dogmatizing spirit, which too often marks the maxims of his 



408 PHILEMON. [Lect. XV. 

more illustrious rival. The following thoughts are as ingeniously con- 
ceived as they are, in the original, happily expressed : 

Extremes of fortune are true wisdom's test, 

And he's of men most wise, who bears them best. 

If what we have we use not, and still covet 
What we have not, we are cajoled by fortune 
Of present bliss, of future by ourselves. 

Two words of nonsense are two words too much ; 
"Whole volumes of good sense will never tire. 
What multitudes of lines hath Homer wrote ? 
Yet who e'er thought he wrote one line too much ? 

Still to be rich is still to be unhappy; 
Still to be envied, hated, and abused: 
Still to commence new lawsuits, new vexations: 
Still to be carking, still to be collecting, 
Only to make your funeral a feast, 
/ And hoard up riches for a thriftless heir. 

Let me be light in purse and light in heart; 
Give me small means, but give content withal, 
Only preserve me from the law, kind gods, 
And I will thank you for my poverty. 

The following animated apostrophe is a fragment of the Ignife?' : — 

Now by the Gods, it is not in the power 
Of painting or of sculpture to express 
Aught so divine as the fair form of Truth ! 
The creatures of their art may catch the eye, 
But her sweet nature captivates the souL 

In the following specimen it is evident that the poet has reference to 
JEschylus : 

All are not just because they do no wrong, 

But he who will not wrong me when he may, 

He is the truly just. I praise not them, 

Who in their petty dealings pilfer not ; 

But him whose conscience spurns a secret fraud, 

When he might plunder and defy surprise : 

His be the praise, who, booking down with scorn 

On the false judgment of the partial herd, 

Consults his own clear heart, and boldly dares 

To be, not to be thought, an honest man. 

The next passage that we shall produce is from the author's Pyrrhus. 
No other fragment of Philemon's poetry with which we are familiar, 



360A.C] PHILEMON. 409 

breathes so soft and placid a spirit, and so perfectly harmonizes with the 
amiable character of the poet, as this brief extract : 



Philosophers consume much time and pains, 

To seek the sovereign good, nor is there one 

Who yet hath struck upon it : Virtue some, 

And prudence some contend for, whilst the knot 

Grows harder by their struggle to untie it. 

I, a mere clown, in turning up the soil, ' 

Have dug the secret forth. All-gracious Jove: 

Tis Peace, most lovely, and of all beloved ; 

Peace is the bounteous Goddess, who bestows \ 

* Weddings and holidays and joyous feasts, \ 

Relations, friends, health,' plenty, social comfqrts, 

And pleasures which alone make life a blessing. 

| 
The following fragment of The Ephebus, preserved by Stobseus, is of a 
mild and plaintive character ; and though it speaks the language of the 
deepest sorrow, it speaks, at the same time, the language of humanity. 
There is no turbulence — no invective : it is calculated to move our pity, 
not excite our horror : 

'Tis not on them alone who tempt the sea, 

That the storm breaks, it whelms even us, Laches, 

Whether we pace the open colonnade, 

Or to the inmost shelter of our house, 

Shrink from its rage. The sailor for a day, 

And night, perhaps, is bandied up and down, 

And then anon reposes, when the wind 

Veers to the wish'd-for point, and wafts him home: 

But I know no repose ; not one day only, 

But every day, to the last hour of life, 

Deeper and deeper I am plunged in woe. 

In all the remains of this interesting author, there seems, as Cumber- 
land justly remarks, a characteristic gentleness of manners. Where he 
gives advice, it is recommended rather than imposed : his reproofs are 
softened with such an air of good humor, as gives a grace to instruction, 
and smiles while it corrects. Would it be possible for experience to 
tutor indiscretion in milder terms than the following : 

O Cleon, cease to trifle thus with life. 

A mind so barren of experience, 

Can hoard up naught but misery, believe me. 

The shipwreck'd mariner must sink outright, 

Who makes no effort to regain the shore; 

The needy wretch who never learn'd a trade, 

And will not work, must starve — What then? you cry— 

My riches — Frail security — My farms, 

My houses, my estate —Alas ! my friend, 



410 DIPHILUS. [Lect.XV. 

Fortune makes quick despatch, and in a day 

Can strip you bare as beggary itself. 

Grant that you now had piloted your bark 

Into good fortune's haven, anchor'd there, 

And moor'd her safe as caution could devise ; 

Yet if the headstrong passions seize the helm 

And turn her out to sea, the stormy gusts 

Shall rise and blow you out of sight of port, 

Never to reach prosperity again — 

What tell you me ? have I not friends to fly to ? 

I have : and will not those kind friends protect me ? 

Better it were you shall not need their service, 

And so not make the trial: much I fear 

Your sinking hand would only grasp a shade. 



Diphilus was a native of Sinope, and contemporary with Menander 
and Philemon. Clemens and Eusebius applaud him for his comic wit 
and humor, and also for the sententious and moral character of his 
drama. His language is simple and elegant, but it contains many de- 
partures from Attic purity. He was the author of one hundred comedies, 
thirty-two titles, and some very considerable fragments of which have 
been preserved. His death occurred at Smyrna, in Ionia, but in what 
year is uncertain. Of his various fragments the following is the most 
perfect : 

We have a notable good law at Corinth, 

Where, if an idle fellow outruns reason, 

Feasting and junketing at furious cost, 

The sumptuary proctor calls upon him, 

And thus begins to sift him — You live well, 

But have you well to live ? You squander freely, 

Have you the wherewithal? Have you the fund 

For these outgoings ? If you have, go on ! 

If you have not, we'll stop you in good time, 

Before you outrun honesty ; for he 

Who lives we know not how must live by plunder; 

Either he picks a purse, or robs a house, 

Or is accomplice with some knavish gang, 

Or thrusts himself in crowds to play th' informer, 

And puts his perjured evidence to sale. 

This a well order'd city will not suffer: 

Such vermin we expel. — And you do wisely: 

But what is this to me? — Why, this it is; 

Here we behold you every day at work, 

Living forsooth ! not as your neighbors live, 

But richly, royally, ye gods ! Why, man, 

We cannot get a fish for love or money, 

You swallow the whole produce of the sea ; 

You've driven our citizens to browse on cabbage 

A sprig of parsley sets them all a fighting, 

As at the Isthmian games : if hare, or partridge, 



350A.C] PHILIPPIDES. 411 

Or but a simple thrush comes to the market, 
Quick, at a word you snap him. By the gods ! 
Hunt Athens through, you shall not find a feather 
But in your kitchen; and for wine, 'tis gold — 
Not to be purchased — We may drink the ditches. 



Apollodorus of Carystus, in Euboea, another of Menander's contem- 
poraries, was a writer high in fame, and the author of forty-seven come- 
dies, the titles of eight of which, and a few fragments, remain. That he 
was one of the most distinguished poets of the New Comedy is evident 
from the fact, that Terence took his Hecyra and Phormio from him. He 
flourished between 300 and 260 A.C., and therefore was one of the latest 
of the distinguished writers of the school to which he belonged. From 
the wreck of this writer's works nothing has been preserved but a few 
such brief fragments as the following : 

Go to ! make fast your gates with bars and bolts ; 

But never chamber-door was shut so close 

But cats and cuckold-makers would creep through it. 

How sweet were life, how placid and serene, 
"Were others but as gentle as ourselves : 
But if we must consort with apes and monkeys, 
We must be brutes like them — life of sorrow ! 

"What do you trust to, father ? To your money ? 
Fortune indeed to those who have it not 
Will sometimes give it : but 'tis done in malice, 
Merely that she may take it back again. 

Youth and old age have their respective humors; 
And son by privilege can say to father, 
Were you not once as young as I am now ? 
Not so the father ; he cannot demand, 
Were you not once as old as I am now? 

In the following natural description of a friendly welcome there is 
something extremely pleasing : 

There is a certain hospitable air 

In a friend's house, that tells me I am welcome ; 

The porter opens to me with a smile; 

The yard-dog wags his tail, the servant runs 

Beats up the cushion, spreads the couch, and says — 

Sit down, good sir 1 ere I can say I'm weary. 

Philippides, a native Athenian, and the son of Philocles, was another 
of this illustrious band of contemporary rival authors. Of the history 



412 POSIDIPPUS. [Lect.XV. 

of his life nothing is known, and his extreme sensibility was the cause of 
his death ; for the sudden transport, occasioned by the unexpected suc- 
cess of one of his comedies, put a period to his life : the poet was, how- 
ever, at the time, very far advanced in age. Donatus informs us that 
Philippides was in the highest favor with king Lysimachus, between 
whom and the poet the very closest intimacy subsisted. ' What is there,' 
said the king to him upon one occasion, ' which Philippides would wish 
I should impart to him ?' l Anything,' replied the poet, ' but your 
secrets.' 

Philippides, according to Plutarch, seems to have deserved the rank 
assigned to him, as one of the best poets of the New Comedy. He at- 
tacked the luxury and corruptions of his age, defended the privileges of 
his art, and made use of personal satire with a spirit approaching to 
that of the Old Comedy. Suidas names forty-five as the number of 
his comedies, the titles of fifteen of which are still extant ; but there 
are no fragments remaining that require a farther notice. 

JPosidippus, also of Athens, though born at Cassandria in Macedonia, 
was the son of Cyniscus, and one of the six poets of the New Comedy 
mentioned by the Alexandrian grammarians as the most celebrated of 
that school. He may be properly regarded as -he last of the comic 
poets of Greece, and it was not until three years after the death of Men- 
ander that he began to exhibit his dramas, and posterior to him we know 
of no comic poet who has bequeathed even his name to posterity. 

Of the events of this poet's life nothing is now known ; but his por- 
trait is preserved to us in the beautiful sitting statue in the Vatican, 
which, with the accompanying statue of Menander, is esteemed by the 
best judges as among the finest works of Greek sculpture which have 
come down to us. Posidippus, according to Suidas, was the author of 
forty comedies, of which eighteen titles only have been preserved. The 
extant fragments of these plays are not of suflicient extent to enable us 
to determine from them any one of the author's peculiarities. 

We have thus brought down the history of the Attic drama from 
JEschylus to Menander ■, and in closing our remarks upon this depart- 
ment of Grecian literature, we cannot refrain from reminding you of the 
treasure of thought and life here unfolded to us — of the remarkable 
changes effected, not only in the forms of poetry, but in the inmost re- 
cesses of the constitution of the Greek mind ; and how great and signifi- 
cant a portion of the history of our race is here laid before us in the 
most vivid delineations. 



tutuxt tl)t $ixltnfy. 

PHILOSOPHY. 

THALBS.— ANAXIMANDER.— ANAXIMENES.— HERACLITUS.— ANAXAGORAS. 
— ARCHELAUS.— PYTHAGORA^.— SOCRATES. — ARISTIPPUS.— EUCLID.— 
PILEDO. — ANTISTHENES. — ZENO. — CHRYSIPPUS. — PLATO. — ARCESI- 
LAUS.— CARNEADES.— ARISTOTLE.— XENOPHANES.— EPICURUS.— PYR- 
RHO. 

HAYING- closed our remarks on the poets and the poetry of Greece, 
we shall now proceed to notice "briefly her philosophers, her orators, 
and her historians. 

Grecian philosophy was not, properly speaking, of native origin, hut 
was introduced by the various colonies which early migrated into that 
country from Egypt, from Phoenicia, and from Thrace. It first appeared 
in the poets who treated, in their verse, of the nature of things, the ori- 
gin of the world, the system of the gods, and the principles of morals. 
Linus, Musgeus, Orpheus, and Hesiod all belong to this class ; and even 
Homer may be included with them. The poets of Greece, it may there- 
fore be truly said, were her first philosophers ; and it may also, with pro- 
priety, be remarked, that the next philosophers were her priests and 
legislators. 

Grecian philosophy had a religious aspect in its very beginnings, in the 
fanciful speculations of the poets respecting the origin of things, and the 
nature and offices of the gods. The notion of a multitude of supernatu- 
ral spirits, having each an appropriate department in governing the 
world, could not but affect the philosophical reasonings of all who em- 
braced it ; and hence it was perfectly natural to inquire how these agents 
would make known their will, and predict to man the future, or warn him 
of danger. Thus was furnished a fruitful field of speculation upon the 
various subjects of augury, omens, oracles, and the whole system of divi- 
nation. The ideas which became incorporated into the popular belief, 
were, indeed, but a mass of absurdities not deserving the name of philos- 
ophy ; yet it was about such ideas that the early Greeks expended much 
thought, or rather indulged in much fancy. Upon this foundation arose 



414 PHILOSOPHY. [Lect. XVI. 

a curious fabric — divination, which, under the ingenuity of priests, who 
united to personal shrewdness and foresight, some knowledge of physical 
nature — grew into a sort of regular science. The institutions termed 
mysteries had, in their nature and design, some intimate connection with 
this early religious philosophy. 

In this state philosophy remained, until the progress of society de- 
manded the care of the lawgiver, and furnished the talents and knowledge 
requisite to frame successive codes. Then the moral and social nature 
of man began to be more studied. Reflecting minds investigated the mo- 
tives by which men might be actuated, and contemplated the nature, 
proper punishments, and preventives of crime, the theory of government 
and education. In learning the character of this political philosophy, we 
must particularly attend to the civil institutions of Lycurgus and Solon, 
and the character and doctrines of those who are called, by way of emi- 
nence, the Seven Wise Men of Greece. 

A glance at the institutions of Lycurgus will show us that very partic- 
ular care was bestowed upon the training of youth for their future cir- 
cumstances ; but his system and that of Solon differed widely from each 
other. The former aimed to form a community of high-minded warriors, 
while the latter sought rather a community of cultivated scholars. These 
different designs must necessarily have varied their plans of education ; 
and, accordingly, while Lycurgus enjoined abstinence and hardships, So- 
lon furnished books and teachers. It must not, however, be forgotten, 
that the Spartan system was two hundred years earlier than the Athe- 
nian, and that Grecian social intercourse had now very greatly improved. 
1 The Seven Wise Men of Greece,' of whom Solon himself was one of the 
most distinguished, belong to this period. They were all actually em- 
ployed as magistrates and statesmen ; but they were also the philosophers 
of the age. They were not merely speculative, as the disciples of the 
different sects afterwards were ; nor did they, like the preceding poets, 
indulge in fanciful dreams : they were rather men of shrewd practical ob- 
servation. Hence the character of their philosophical fragments, which 
are wholly proverbial maxims, adapted for the conduct of life, in manners 
and morals. Their precepts were not always given in formal statements, 
but sometimes clothed in symbolic expressions, which were understood by 
those only to whom they were explained. Fabulous tales also were 
sometimes employed for the same purpose ; such were those of iEsop, in 
which moral and political maxims are drawn out into allegory. 

Grecian philosophy, soon after the age of Solon, assumed a definite 
form, and was taught in public schools, and divided into various sects. 
The origin of different schools is commonly ascribed to the clashing inter- 
pretations which were put upon Homer by the Ehapsodists, who, after 
rehearsing passages from the great poet and master, added their own ex- 
planations and comments. As these interpreters frequently disagreed in 



620A.C.] THALES. 415 

expounding the Homeric philosophy, they naturally divided the commu- 
nity of their hearers into different parties or sects, each having his advo- 
cates among those who did not belong to his particular profession. At 
length two very eminent men arose, and became each the head of a school 
in philosophy, which soon absorbed all others. These men were Thales 
of Miletus, in Ionia, and Pythagoras, of the island of Samos. Thales 
founded the Ionic school, and Pythagoras, the Italic ; and to these two 
original schools all the various sects into which Grecian philosophers 
were afterwards divided, may be traced. Of these two schools the Ionic 
was the earlier by about a half a century. 

Thales, the founder of the Ionic school, was a native of Miletus, and 
was born in the early part of the seventh century, A.C. He was of an 
ancient and honorable family, inherited great wealth, and possessed the 
highest order of talents. After having travelled through Crete, Egypt, 
and various other countries, he returned to his native city, and thence- 
forth devoted himself exclusively to philosophical pursuits. As one of 
the sages of Greece, he necessarily devoted much of his time and thought 
to political philosophy ; but he also embraced, in the range of his instruc- 
tions, all the inquiries of the Rhapsodists, concerning the physical and 
material world. Philosophy, as studied in this school, included, in 
reality, every branch of science: — not only morals and politics — but 
rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, and all that is now comprehended 
under natural philosophy and natural history. 

The Seven Sages, of whom Thales was the chief, were not solitary 
thinkers, whose renown for wisdom was acquired by speculations unintel- 
ligible to the mass of the people. Their fame, which extended over all 
Greece, was founded solely on their acts as statesmen, councillors of the 
people in public affairs, and practical men. Thales' sagacity in affairs 
of State and public economy appears from many anecdotes. Herodotus 
says that at the time when the Ionians were threatened by the power of 
Cyrus, king of Persia, after the fall of Croesus, Thales, who was then very 
old, advised them to establish an Ionian capital in the middle of their 
sea-coast, somewhere near Teos, where all the affairs of their race might 
be debated, and to which all the other Ionian cities might stand in the 
same relation as the Attic minor states, to Athens. 

At an earlier age, Thales is said to have foretold to the Ionians the 
total eclipse of the sun, which, in 603 A.C, separated the Medes from the 
Lydians in the battle which was fought by Cyaxares against Alyattes. 
On this occasion he doubtless employed astronomical formulae which he 
had obtained from the Chaldeans, the fathers of Grecian astronomy ; for 
his own knowledge of mathematics could hardly have been sufficient for 
such purpose. He is said, however, to have been the first teacher of such 
problems as that of the equality of the angles at the base of an isosceles 
triangle. The general tendency of Thales' philosophy was practical ; and 



416 ANAXIMANDER. [Lect. XVI. 

where his own knowledge therefore was insufficient, he unhesitatingly ap- 
plied the discoveries of nations more advanced than his own in natural 
sciences. Thus, he was the first who advised his countrymen, when at 
sea, not to steer by the Great Bear, which forms a considerable circle 
round the Pole ; but to follow the example of the Phoenicians, his own 
ancestors, and to take the Lesser Bear for their Polar star. 

As Thales was not a poet, nor indeed the author of any written work, 
the accounts of his doctrine rest entirely upon the testimony of his contem- 
poraries and immediate successors ; and it would therefore be vain to 
attempt to construct from them a system of natural philosophy according 
to his notions. It may, however, be collected from these traditions, that 
he considered all nature as endowed with life ; for, says he, ' Everything 
is full of the gods.' As proof of this opinion, he cited the magnet and 
amber, on account of their magnetic and electric properties. It also ap- 
pears that he considered water as the general principle or cause of all 
things ; probably because it sometimes assumes a vapory, and sometimes 
a liquid form, affording thus a remarkable example of change of outward 
appearance. This is sufficient to show that Thales broke through the 
common prejudices produced by the impressions of the senses; and 
sought to discover the principle of external forms in moving powers which 
lie beneath the surface of appearances. 

Thales died 540 A.C. ; and left, as his immediate successors, Anaxi- 
mander, Anaxi?nenes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Archelaus of Miletus. 

Anaximander, the immediate successor of Thales, was also a native of 
Miletus, and was born 611 A.C. He was the author of a small treatise 
upon Nature — as the works of the Ionic physiologers were usually called 
— which he wrote in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and which may pro- 
perly be regarded as the earliest philosophical work in the Greek lan- 
guage ; for we can scarcely give, that name to the mysterious revelations 
of Pherecydes. This work was probably written in a style of extreme 
conciseness ; and from the few fragments of it still extant, we should be 
inclined to think that the language was better suited to poetry than 
to prose. The astronomical and geographical explanations attributed to 
Anaximander were probably contained in this treatise. 

Anaximander possessed a gnomon, or sun-dial, which he had doubtless 
obtained from Babylon ; and sometime after, being at Sparta, he made 
observations, by which he determined exactly the solstices and equinoxes, 
and also calculated the obliquity of the ecliptic. According to Eratos- 
thenes, he was the first who attempted to draw a map ; in which his 
object probably was rather to make a mathematical division of the whole 
earth, than to lay down the forms of the different countries composing it. 
According to Aristotle, Anaximander thought that there were innumerable 
worlds which he called gods, supposing these worlds to be beings endowed 



600A.C] ANAXIMENES. 417 

with an independent power of motion. He also thought that existing 
worlds were always perishing, and that new worlds were always springing 
into being ; so that motion was perpetual. According to his views, 
these worlds arose out of an eternal or indeterminable substance, out 
of which all things arose, and, by excluding all attributes and limita- 
tions, all things must return. Hence he remarks, ' All existing things 
must, in justice, perish in that in which they had their origin ; for one 
thing is always punished by another for its injustice in setting itself in 
the place of another, according to the order of time. 1 

Anaximenes, the third in the series of Ionian philosphers, was also a 
native of Miletus, and was intimate with both Thales and Anaximander ; 
for, besides the common tradition which makes him a disciple of the lat- 
ter, Diogenes Laertius quotes at length two letters said to have been 
written by him to Pythagoras, in one of which he gives an account of 
the death of Thales, speaking of him with reverence, as the first of philos- 
ophers, and as having been his own teacher. In the other, he congratu- 
lates Pythagoras on his removal from Samos to Crotona, while he was 
himself at the mercy of the tyrants of Miletus, and was looking forward 
with fear to the approaching war with the Persians, in which he foresaw 
that the Ionians must be eventually subdued. Of the exact period of 
his birth and death, we have no reliable testimony; but since there is 
sufficient evidence that he was the teacher of Anaxagoras in 480 A.C., 
and was in repute as early as 544 A.C., he must have lived to a very 
great age. 

Like the other early Greek philosophers, Anaximenes employed him- 
self in speculating upon the origin, and accounting for the phenomena, 
of the universe ; and as Thales held water to be the material cause out 
of which the world was made, so Anaximenes considered air to be the 
first cause of all things — the primary form of matter, into which the other 
elements of the universe were resolvable. Both these philosophers seem 
to have thought it possible to simplify physical science, by tracing all 
material things up to a single element : while Anaximander, on the con- 
trary, regarded the substance out of which the universe was formed, as a 
mixture of all elements and qualities. The process by which, according 
to Anaximenes, finite things were formed from the infinite air, was that 
of compression and rarefaction produced by motion, which had existed 
from all eternity : thus the earth was created out of air, made dense ; 
and from the earth the sun and the other heavenly bodies proceeded. 

According to the same theory, heat and cold were produced by differ- 
ent degress of density of the primal element : the clouds were formed by 
the thickening of the air ; and the earth was kept in its place by the sup- 
port of the air beneath it, and by the flatness of its shape. Hence it ap- 
pears that Anaximenes, like his predecessors, held the eternity of matter : 
nor indeed does he seem to have believed in the existence of anything im- 

27 



418 HERACLITUS. [Lect. XVI 

material ; for even the human soul, according to his theory, is like the 
bod}', formed of air; and he saw no necessity for supposing an Agent in 
the work of creation, since he held that motion was a natural and neces- 
sary law of the universe. Plutarch therefore properly blames both him 
and Anaximander, for assigning only the material, and no efficient, cause 
of the world in their philosophical systems. 

Heraclitus, a person of far greater importance in the history of 
Grecian philosophy than any hitherto noticed, was a native of Ephesus, 
and nourished about 505 A.C. He composed a regular treatise Upon 
Nature, and dedicated it to the native goddess of Ephesus, the great 
Artemis — as if such a destination were alone worthy of it ; and he did not 
consider it worth his while to give it to the public. 

In his personal character, Heraclitus, according to the concurrent 
tradition of antiquity, was a proud and reserved man, and disliked all 
interchange of ideas with others. He thought that the profound cogita- 
tions on the nature of things which he had made in solitude, were far 
more valuable than all the information which he could gain from other 
men. ' Much learning,' said he, ' does not produce wisdom ; otherwise it 
would have made Hesiod wise, and Pythagoras, and again, Xenophanes 
and Hecatseus.' He dealt rather in intimations of important truths, than 
in popular expositions of them, such as the other Ionian philosophers 
preferred. His language was prose only in so far as it was free from 
metrical shackles ; but its expressions were boMer, and its tone more ani- 
mated than those of many poems. 

The cardinal doctrine of Heraclitus' natural philosophy seems to have 
been, that everything is in perpetual motion — that nothing has any stable 
or permanent existence, but that everything is constantly assuming a new 
form, or perishing. c We step,' says he, in his symbolical language, ' into 
the same rivers, and we do not step into them. We are, and are not.' 
By the first of these expressions he doubtless refers to the constant 
change of the water, and by the second, to the fact that no point in our 
existence remains fixed. Hence, every sensible object appeared to him, 
not as something individual, but only as another form of something else. 
•' Fire,' he again remarks, ' lives the death of the earth ; air lives the 
death of fire ; water lives the death of air ; and the earth, that of water.' 
His meaning here seems to be, that individual things are only different 
forms of a universal substance, which usually destroy each other. In 
like manner he saja of men and gods, ' Our life is their death ; their life 
is our death ;' or, in other words, men were gods that had died, and gods 
were men raised to life. These notions, it will readily be perceived, are 
atheistical in the highest degree, and as such are to be condemned ; but 
still they discover much deep and searching thought. 

Looking for the principle of perpetual motion in natural phenomena, 
Heraclitus supposed it to hejlre ; though he probably meant, not the fire 



600A.C.] ANAXAGORAS. 419 

perceptible to the senses, but a higher and more universal agent. For, 
as we have already seen, he conceived the sensible fire as living and 
dying, like the other elements ; but of the igneous principle of life he re- 
marks, c The unchanging order of all things was made neither by a god 
nor a man, but it has always been, is, and will be the living fire, which 
is kindled and extinguished in regular succession.' But Heraclitus did 
not conceive this continual motion to be the work of mere chance, for he 
expressly declares that it is directed by a Fate, which guided ' the way 
upwards and downwards,' or successively produced and destroyed. 
Hence, he observes, * The sun will not overstep its path ; if it did, the 
Erinnyes, the allies of justice would find it out.' He recognized in 
motion an eternal law, which was maintained by the supreme powers of 
the universe. In this respect the followers of Heraclitus appear to have 
departed from the wise example of their teacher ; for, according to Plato, 
who calls them < the runners,' the exaggerated Heraclitus aimed at prov- 
ing a perpetual, change and motion in all things. 

Heraclitus, like most of the Greek philosophers, despised the popular 
religion. Their object was, by arguments derived from their immediate 
experience, to emancipate themselves from all traditional opinions, which 
included not only superstition and prejudices, but also some of the most 
valuable truths. Heraclitus boldly rejected the whole ceremonial of the 
Greek religion ; saying, his countrymen ' worship images : just as if any 
one were to converse with houses.' The opinions of Heraclitus on the 
important question of the relation between mind and body, agreed with 
the popular religion, and with the prevailing notions of the Greeks. The 
primitive beings of the world were, in the popular creed, both spiritual 
powers and material substances ; and Heraclitus conceived the original 
matter of the world to be the source of life. 

Anaxagoras, soon after the age of Heraclitus, rejected all the popular 
notions on religion, and struck into a new path of speculation on sacred 
things. Similar opinions had, indeed, been previously entertained in the 
East, and, in particular, the Mosaic conceptions of the Deity and the world 
belongs to the same class of religious views. But among the Greeks these 
views, which the Christian religion has made so familiar in modern times, 
were first introduced by Anaxagoras, and were presented by him in a phi- 
losophical form ; and having been, from the beginning, more opposed than 
the doctrines of former philosophers to the popular mythological religion, 
they tended powerfully, by their rapid diffusion, to undermine the princi- 
ples upon which the entire worship of the ancient gods rested, and there- 
fore prepared the way for the subsequent triumph of Christianity. 

Anaxagoras, the disciple of Anaximenes, was born at Clazomenas, in 
Ionia, 500 A.C. His father, Hegesibulus, left him in the possession of 
considerable property, but as he intended to devote his life to higher ends, 



420 AN AX AG OR AS. [Lect. XVI 

he gave it np to his relatives, as something which ought not to engage 
his attention. He is said to have gone to Athens at the age of twenty, 
during the contest of the Greeks with Persia, and to have lived and 
taught in that city for a period of thirty years. He became here the 
intimate. friend and teacher of the most eminent men of the time, such as 
Euripides and Pericles ; but while he thus gained the friendship and 
admiration of the most enlightened Athenians, the majority, uneasy at be- 
ing disturbed in their hereditary superstitions, soon found reasons for 
complaint. 

The principal cause of hostility towards him must, however, be looked 
for in the following circumstance : — As he was a friend of Pericles, the 
party which was dissatisfied with his administration, seized upon the 
disposition of the people towards the philosopher, as a favorable opportu- 
nity for striking a blow at the great statesman. Anaxagoras was, there- 
fore, accused of impiety. His trial and its results are matters of the 
greatest uncertainty on account of the different statements, of the ancients 
themselves. It seems probable, however, that Anaxagoras was accused 
twice — once on the ground of impiety, and a second time on that of par- 
tiality to Persia. In the first place it was owing to the influence and elo- 
quence alone of Pericles that he was not put to death ; but he was sen- 
tenced to pay a fine of five talents, and to quit Athens. 

Anaxagoras, on leaving Athens, retired to Lampsacus, and it was dur- 
ing his absence that a second charge was brought against him, in conse- 
quence of which he was condemned to death. He received the intelligence 
of his sentence with a smile, and died at Lampsacus three years after, in 
the seventy-second year of his age, 428 A.C. 

The only work of Anaxagoras of which we have any knowledge, was his 
Treatise on Nature. It was written at Athens, late in life, and was 
composed in the Ionic dialect, in prose, after the manner of Anaximenes. 
The copious fragments of this work extant, exhibit short sentences, con- 
nected by particles, without long periods. But though the style of Anax- 
agoras was loose, his reasoning was compact and well arranged. His dem- 
onstrations were synthetic, not analytic ; that is, he subjoined the proof of 
the proposition to be proved, instead of arriving at his result by a process 
of inquiry. His philosophy began with his doctrine of atoms, which, con- 
trary to the opinions of his predecessors, he considered as limited in 
number. He was the first to exclude the idea of creation from his expla- 
nation of nature. ' The Greeks,' he remarked, c were mistaken in their 
doctrine of creation and destruction ; for nothing is either created or de- 
stroyed, but it is only produced from existing things by mixture, or it is 
dissolved by separation. They should, therefore, rather call creation a 
conjunction, and destruction a dissolution.' 

It is easy to imagine that Anaxagoras, with this opinion, must have 
arrived at the doctrine of atoms which were unchangable and imperish- 
able, and which were mixed and united in bodies in different ways. But. 



473A.C] ARCHELAUS. 421 

since, from the want of chemical knowledge, he was unable to determine 
the component parts of bodies, he supposed that each separate body, as 
bone, flesh, wood, and stone, consisted of corresponding particles. But 
to explain the production of one thing from another he was obliged to 
assume that all things contained a portion of all other things, and that 
the particular form of each body depended upon the preponderating in- 
gredient. As Anaxagoras, therefore, maintained the doctrine that bodies 
are mere matter, without any spontaneous power of change, he also re- 
quired a principle of life and motion beyond the material world. . This 
principle he called spirit, which, he says, is ' the purest and most subtle 
of all things, having the most knowledge and the greatest strength.' 
1 Spirit,' he farther remarks, ' does not deny the universal power of mixing 
with all things ; for, though it exists in inanimate beings, yet it is not so 
closely combined with the material atoms as these are with each other.' 

This spirit, according to Anaxagoras, gave to all those material atoms, 
which in the beginning of the world lay in disorder, the impulse by which 
they took the forms of individual things and beings. He considered this 
impulse as having been given by the spirit in a circular direction ; and, 
according to his opinion, not only the sun, moon, and stars, but even the 
air and the aether, are constantly moving in a circle. He farther thought 
that the power of this circular motion kept all these heavenly bodies, 
which he supposed to be masses of stone, in their courses. This doctrine 
was extremely offensive to the Greeks, particularly the idea that the sun, 
the bountiful Helios, who shines upon both mortals and immortals, was 
a mass of red-hot iron. 

How startling must these opinions have appeared at a time when the 
people were accustomed to consider nature as pervaded by a thousand 
divine powers ! And yet these new doctrines rapidly gained the ascend- 
ancy, notwithstanding the severe opposition of religion, poetry, and even 
the laws, which were intended to protect the ancient customs and opin- 
ions. A century later, Anaxagoras, with his doctrine of spirit, appeared 
to Aristotle a sober inquirer as compared with the wild speculators who 
preceded him ; although Aristotle was aware that his applications of his 
doctrines were unsatisfactory and defective. For as Anaxagoras en- 
deavored to explain natural phenomena, and in this endeavor he, like 
other natural philosophers, extended the influence of natural causes to 
its utmost limits, he, of course, attempted to explain, as much as possible, 
by his doctrine of circular motion, and to have recourse, as rarely as 
possible, to the agency of spirit. Indeed it appears evident that he only 
introduced the latter when all other means of explanation failed. 

Archelaus was the son of Myson, and was born at Athens about 473 
A.G. He is frequently called JPhysicus, from having been the first native 
Athenian who taught in Athens the physical doctrines of the Ionian 
school of philosophy. Before the public trial of Anaxagoras, Archelaus 



422 ARCHELAUS. [Lect. XYI. 

was settled in his profession at Lanipsacus ; but on the withdrawal of his 
great predecessor from Athens in 450 A.C., he returned to his native city, 
commenced giving philosophical instruction there, and is said to have 
numbered among his pupils both Socrates and Euripides. 

The doctrine of Archelaus is remarkable as forming a point of transi- 
tion from the older to the newer form of philosophy of Greece. In the 
mental history of all nations it is observable that scientific inquiries are 
first confined to natural objects, and afterwards pass into moral specula- 
tions ; and so, among the Greeks, the Ionians were occupied with phy- 
sics, the Socratic school chiefly with ethics Archelaus is the union of the 
two : he was the last recognized leader of the former, and added to the 
physical system of his teacher, Anaxagoras, some attempts at moral 
speculations. He held that air and infinity are the principle of all 
things ; and by this statement he intended to exclude the operations of 
mind from the creation of the world. If so, he abandoned the doctrine 
of Anaxagoras in its most important point ; and it therefore seems safer 
to conclude, that while he wished to inculcate the materialist notion that 
the mind is formed of air, he still held infinite mind to be the cause of 
all things. This explanation has the advantage of agreeing very fairly 
with that of Simplicius ; and as Anaxagoras himself did not accurately 
distinguish between mind and the animal soul, this confusion may have 
given rise to his pupil's doctrine. 

Archelaus deduced motion from the opposition of heat and cold, caused, 
of course, if we adopt the above hypothesis, by the will of the material 
mind. This opposition separated fire and water, and produced a strong 
mass of earth. While the earth was hardening, the action of heat upon 
its moisture gave birth to animals, which at first were nourished by the 
mud from which they sprang, and gradually acquired the power of propa- 
gating their species. All these animals were endowed with mind, but 
man separated from the others, and established laws and societies. It was 
just from this point of his physical theory that he seems to have passed 
into ethical speculations, assigning the same origin to the principles of 
right and wrong that he assigns to man. Now, a contemporaneous origin 
with that of the human race is not very different from what a sound sys- 
tem of philosophy would demand from these ideas, though, of course, 
such a system would maintain quite another origin of man ; and, there- 
fore, assuming the Archelaic physical system, it does not necessarily fol- 
low, that his ethical principles are so destructive of all goodness as they 
appear. This view is made almost certain by the fact that Democritus 
taught, that the ideas of sweet and bitter, warm and cold, and other op- 
posites, are by spirit, which can be accounted for only by a similar sup- 
position. Of the other doctrines of Archelaus we need only mention, 
that he asserted the earth to have the form of an egg, the sun being the 
largest of the stars ; and that he correctly accounted for speech by the 



610A.C] PYTHAGORAS. 423 

motion of the air. For this, according to Plutarch, he was indebted to 
Anaxagoras. 

From this brief notice of Ionian philosophy, and of its principal 
teachers, we pass to the Italic sect, or school, which soon became much 
more celebrated than its eastern rivals. Pythagoras its founder was a 
native of the Island of Samos, but early went to Crotona, in Italy, 
where he established his school about 540 A.C. His pupils increased so 
rapidly that they soon numbered six hundred, all of whom resided in one 
public building, and held their property in common. They were divided 
into two classes, probationers and initiated — the latter only being admit- 
ted to all the privileges of the order, and made acquainted with the 
highest knowledge. After subsisting several years, the establishment was 
at length broken up by popular violence. 

Under the name of philosophy the Italic school, like the Ionic, em- 
braced every object of human knowledge. But Pythagoras considered 
music and astronomy of special value. He is supposed to have had 
some very correct views of astronomy, agreeing with the true Coper - 
nican system. The beautiful fancy of the music of the spheres is at- 
tributed to him. The planets striking on the aether, through which 
they pass, must produce a sound ; this must vary according to their 
different magnitudes, velocities, and relative distances ; these differences 
were all adjusted with perfect regularity and exact proportions, so that 
the movements of the bodies produced the richest tones of harmony ; not 
heard, however, by mortal ears. 

One of the distinguishing peculiarities of Pythagoras was the doctrine 
of emanations ; or, that Grod is the soul of the universe, pervading all 
things incorporeal, and from him emanated four different degrees of intel- 
ligences— inferior gods, dcemons, heroes, and men. Another peculiarity 
was the doctrine of transmigration of tlie soul. As practical principles, 
general abstinence and self-denial were strongly urged. 

Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus, and was born in the island of 
Samos, 570 A.C He early evinced a great desire for knowledge; and 
having exhausted all the sources of information which his native island 
afforded, he, at the age of eighteen, set out to visit other countries. The 
fame of Pherecydes drew him first to the island of Syros ; whence he 
passed to Miletus, where he spent some time with Thales. From Mi- 
letus, Pythagoras went to Sidon, and thence down into Egypt, where he 
devoted many years to close study with the priests of Heliopolis and Dios- 
polis. Having left Egypt, the young philosopher next visited Jerusalem 
and Babylon ; and from the latter city, with his mind stored with all 
variety of knowledge, he returned to his native place, and thence, after a 
short time, he went into Greece. 

Passing through Peloponnesus, Pythagoras spent a short time at the 



424 PYTHAGORAS. [Lect. XVI. 

court of Leo, king of Phlius ; and with his eloquence and wisdom that 
prince was both charmed and delighted. The sacredness of his situation 
as a distinguished guest, prevented Leo, for some time, from inquiring 
after his pursuits; but the prince, through admiration of his varied 
knowledge, at length ventured to ask him what profession he followed. 
( None,' replied Pythagoras ; l for I am a philosopher.' Displeased with 
the lofty title of sages, and ivise men, which his profession had hitherto 
assumed, he thus changed it into one more modest and humble — calling 
himself simply & philosopher, or a lover of wisdom. Leo then asked him 
what it was to be a philosopher, and in what respect they differed from 
other men ; to which Pythagoras replied, that, ' this life might be com- 
pared to the Olympic games ; for, as in that vast assembly, some came in 
search of glory, others in search of gain, and a third sort, more noble 
than the two former, neither for fame nor profit, but only to enjoy the 
wonderful spectacle, and to see and hear what passes in it : so we, in like 
manner, come into the world, as into a place of public meeting, where 
some toil after glory, others after gain ; and a few contemning riches and 
vanity, apply themselves to the study of nature. These last,' says he, 
' are they whom I call philosophers ; for man was made to know and to 
contemplate.' 

From Greece, Pythagoras went into the southern part of Italy ; and 
finally settled at Crotona, where, as was before observed, he opened his 
school about 540 A.C. He was a politician, however, as well as a 
philosopher, and his political principles were evidently aristocratic : 
hence his opposition to the patrons and leaders of the growing demo- 
cratic interests in that community. He and his followers soon gained an 
influence in the State, sufficiently powerful to enable them to impose an 
aristocratic constitution on Crotona and the neighboring States. The 
league which he established, although it was a religious and philosophical 
fraternity, admission into which was accompanied by mystical rites of 
initiation, constituted also a political bond of union, and its object was to 
propagate aristocratic principles. Hence it was a political tumult, origin- 
ating with the popular party, which led to its suppression, and the con- 
sequent persecution of Pythagoras. In the revolution that succeeded, 
and which pervaded all the States of Magna Graecia, Pythagoras in vain 
sought safety in flight. The principles, and therefore the influence, of his 
enemies extended far and wide ; and he was at length put to death at 
Metapontum, whilst Crotona, which had rejected his wise counsels, sank 
into decay as rapidly as it had, under his influence, risen to pre 
perity. 

The principle upon which the Pythagorean system of philosophy seems 
to have been based, was the relation of numbers ; but it is difficult to 
form a clear conception of the nature of that relation even generally, and 
in particular cases it is impossible. Probably in some of its applications, 



570A.C.] PYTHAGORAS. 425 

no clear ideas existed in the minds of these philosophers themselves. At 
one time, the term number is used as though it merely signified the 
arithmetical proportion in which elements are combined, so as to produce 
different phenomena, Again, in discussing the theory of musical harmony, 
and that theory of harmony, or music of the spheres, which he applied to 
his astronomical system, number simply expresses the ratio which strings, 
producing musical tones, bear to one another ; and of that relation of the 
several parts of the universe which constitutes order, regularity, and 
stability. In these cases, number is only used as representing, symbolic- 
ally, the musical relation of things which have an existence independent 
of it. At another time, when this unity is spoken of as the principle of 
all being, it appears as though the perception which Pythagoras formed 
of it was that of something real and material. 

The probability, however, is, that the symbolical sense of the term was 
the one adopted by Pythagoras himself ; and that, by a forced analogy, 
number was afterwards made use of by his followers, to account for phenom- 
ena to which it was totally incapable of being applied. They committed 
the common error of confounding the symbol with the thing signified. 
Instead of being content with affirming that harmony depended on the 
proportion of the parts to one another ; and that this proportion was 'the 
law, according to which the operations of nature were carried on, the 
followers of Pythagoras carried his theory farther, and considered that 
which was, in reality, only its symbolical representative, the material and 
efficient cause of all things. Harmony seems to have been the foundation 
of the Pythagorean system — the leading idea which at first took possess- 
ion of his mind. Music had, at this time, begun to exercise an influence 
over poetry — it was a step to introduce it into the domain of philosophy. 
Its application to account for the order and regularity which reigned 
among the heavenly bodies, naturally suggested itself to an astronomer, 
whose studies had been directed to it in the abstract, and who, even in 
his medical studies, was led to make observations on its influence upon 
the human frame. 

From these considerations, it is clear that the Pythagorean theory of 
numbers was reasonable, so far as it resolved all the relations, whether 
of space or time, into those of number or proportion, and asserted that 
the order of the universe was maintained by the laws of harmony ; but it 
became arbitrary — mere words without meaning — when it assumed that 
mathematical quantities and ideas were not symbols of things, but the 
things themselves — the elements out of which material essences origin- 
ated, and that even virtue, justice, and all other moral qualities, were 
defined by certain fixed and determined numbers. 

The same mysticism and obscurity, which pervaded the doctrines just 
noticed, enter also into all the investigations of the Pythagoreans respect- 
ing the spiritual nature of man. The human soul they believed to be an 



426 SOCRATES. [Lect. XYL 

emanation from the Deity — eternal, personal, dwelling in other bodies 
successively, and punished or rewarded in its future state of being — able 
to energize only by means of its union with the body, the senses of which 
are its instruments and organs. They divided it into two parts, the ra- 
tional and the irrational — the governing part being the peculiar property 
of man — the other, the seat of the passions and instinct, common to man 
with the lower animals. 

But the most important feature of the Pythagorean philosophy was, 
that it had for its principal objects the enunciation of one great truth — ■ 
the superiority of intellectual activity to corporeal organization. Arbi- 
trary as its theory of numbers may have been, nevertheless, in teaching 
that all knowledge was resolvable into that of mathematical relations, it 
referred its origin, not to the operations of the bodily senses, but of pure 
intellect. Even in musical harmony the effects and phenomena alone are 
apprehended and appreciated by the ear ; the theory and the principles 
of harmony must be investigated by the logical powers. Thus, the in- 
tellect was most made the judge of truth of every kind, without any 
necessary dependence upon the deceptive tendencies of the external 
senses. It was, doubtless, a yearning after this result, so seductive to 
contemplative minds, which led Pythagoras and his followers into the 
unsound application and illogical developments of a theory which, in its 
simplicity, appeared to rest upon no unreasonable foundation. 

Of the numerous followers of Pythagoras, the principal were Emped- 
ocles of Agrigentum, who flourished about 444 A.C. ; Ocellus of Luca- 
nia, Archytas of Tarentum, and Philolaus of Crotona ; but our limited 
space will not permit us to particularize them. 

From the two primitive schools of philosophy which we have thus no- 
ticed, sprang all the variety of sects into which Greece was afterwards 
divided ; a brief notice of the principal of which will close our present 
remarks. 

The first school that drew its descent from the Ionic, was the Socratic ; 
so called from its founder Socrates, who was a pupil of the last public 
teacher of the Ionic school. Socrates is entitled to the praise of being 
the best man of pagan antiquity ; the charges brought by some of his con- 
temporaries against his purity being unsustained by evidence. 

Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and was born in 
Athens, 468 A.C. He was first trained to the manual employment of 
his father, but was afterwards patronized by Crito, a wealthy Athenian, 
and enjoyed the instruction of the most eminent teachers of the day. In 
the course of his life he served several times in war, as a soldier ; and in 
one engagement he is represented to have saved the life of Alcibiades ; 
in another, that of Xenophon. After he began to teach, most of his time 



468 AC.] SOCRATES. 427 

was spent in public, and lie was at all times ready and free to discourse 
with all who might wish to hear him. In the latter part of his life he 
filled many civil offices with honor and dignity. His domestic relations 
were not happy. He was subjected by his wife to the most trying vexa- 
tions ; though doubtless, the account of them is very greatly exaggerated. 
His trial, condemnation, and death, are themes of intense interest to both 
the scholar and the philanthropist ; and have fixed an indelible stain upon 
the character of the Athenians. At his trial, conscious of his innocence, 
he had no advocate, but made his own defence. Lysias, the most cele- 
brated orator of the age, prepared an oration for his use, but Socrates 
declined to accept it ; and Plato desired to speak in his behalf, but the 
court would not permit him to do so. 

The Socratic mode of instruction was peculiar, being entirely dialogis- 
tic, and consisting of an actual dialogue between the teacher and pupil. 
Socrates would begin with the simplest and most obvious truths, or ad- 
mitted principles, and then advance step by step, with his disciple, hearing 
and answering his questions, removing his doubts, and thus conducting 
him imperceptibly to a conviction of what he designed to teach. One of 
the grand peculiarities of this great philosopher was that he confined the 
attention of his pupils chiefly to moral science. He considered the other 
subjects includedin the studies of the old Ionic school as comparatively use- 
less. He seems to have believed, but with some doubtings, in the immor- 
tality of the soul. Though he himself left nothing in writing, yet, in his 
Memoirs, by Xenophon, we have an authentic source of knowledge respect- 
ing his views. The writings of Plato cannot be so much depended upon 
for this object; for, being poetic by nature, everything assumed to him a 
poetic aspect ; besides, he was himself the founder of a new sect. 

Those disciples of Socrates, such as iEschines, Cebes, and Xenophon, 
who adhered to their master simply, without advancing any notions of 
their own, are sometimes denominated pure Socratic ; but the Socratic 
school soon became divided into various branches. No less than/^e sects, 
beaded by philosophers who had listened to Socrates, in a short time ap- 
peared ; and two of these eventually gave birth each to a new sect, thus 
raising the number to seven. These may be divided into two classes, and 
with propriety designated as Minor Socratic, and Major Socratic sects — 
the original and proper school of Socrates being still called pure Socratic. 

Of the Minor Socratic sect, the three principal schools were the Cyre- 
naic, the Megaric, and the Eliac. The Cyrenaic derived its name from 
Cyrene, in Lybia, the native place of its founder, Aristippus. One of the 
peculiarities of this sect was to favor indulgence in pleasure ; its author 
being himself fond of luxury and ornament. This sect was of compara- 
tively short duration, and never produced any men of particular eminence. 



428 ZENO. [Lect.XVI. 

The Megaric sect was founded by Euclid, and took its name from Me- 
gara, the native place of its founder. It was called Eristic, from its 
disputative character, and Dialectic, from the form of discourse practiced 
by its disciples. This sect was famous for its subtleties in the art of rea- 
soning. Some of these futile sophisms are recorded ; such as, the Horned 
— what you have never lost, you have ; horns you have never lost, therefore 
you have horns. These philosophers also agitated the controversy about 
universals and particulars — substantially the same as that which was so 
acrimonious in the middle ages - , between the nominalists and the realists. 

The Eliac sect was so called from Elis, the place where Phasdo, its 
founder, was born, and where he delivered his lectures. This sect is 
sometimes called Eretria?t, from the circumstance, that Menedemus, a dis- 
ciple of Phasdo, transferred the school to Eretria, the place of his own 
nativity. It opposed the fooleries of the Megaric philosophy, and the 
licentiousness of the Cyrenaic, but never acquired much importance. 

The Major Socratic sects consisted of the Cynic,\he, Stoic, the Aca- 
demic, and the Peripatetic. 

The Cynic originated with Antisthenes, a pupil of Socrates. He 
maintained that all the philosphers were departing from the principles of 
that master. He assumed in the character of a reformer, manners so se- 
vere, and such careful negligence of dress, as to provoke the ridicule of 
even Socrates himself. The Cynics were, however, rather a class of re- 
formers in manners, than a sect of philosophers. The name is said to 
have been occasioned by their severity and sourness, which were carried 
to such excess as to bring upon them the appellation of Dogs. Their two 
distinguishing peculiarites were, that they discarded all speculation and 
science whatever, and insisted on the most rigid self-denial. 

One of the most famous teachers of this sect was Diogenes. He car- 
ried the notions of Antisthenes to the greatest extravagance. Constitu- 
tionally eccentric, he was always a censor, and his opposition to refine- 
ment often degenerated into' rudeness. He satirized the instructions of 
other philosophers in the following manner : — Having heard Plato define 
a man to be a two-legged animal without feathers, he stripped a cock of 
its feathers, and taking it into the academy, exclaimed, l See Plato's manV 
The only writings of this sect extant, are a few fragments of Antisthenes. 

The Stoic sect sprung from the Cynic. Zeno, its founder, was a native 
of the island of Cyprus ; but being brought to Athens by the mercantile 
pursuits of his father, he was accidentally introduced to the school of the 
Cynics, and from them borrowed many of the notions of the sect that he 
established. Zeno, however, visited the other schools which at that time 
existed, and borrowed extensively from them all. The name of Stoic 
was derived from the Portico where he delivered his lectures. 

The Stoics, unlike the Cynics, devoted themselves much to speculative 



428A.C] PLATO. 429 

studies ; but they resembled them in some degree in their general aus- 
terity of manners and character. Indifference to pleasure or pain, adver- 
sity or prosperity, they inculcated as the state of mind essential to happi- 
ness. The doctrine of fate was one of their grand peculiarities. They 
considered all things as controlled by an eternal necessity, to which even 
the Deity himself submitted ; and this necessity was supposed to be the 
origin of evil. Their system of morals was in general strict, and outwardly 
correct, but it fostered a cold, self-relying pride. It approved of suicide, 
which was practised by both Zeno and Cleanthes ; yet it stimulated to 
heroic deeds. In logic, the Stoics imitated the quibbles and sophisms 
of the Megaric sect. They divided all objects of thought or knowledge 
into four kinds — substances, qualities, modes and relations ; and so pure 
were many of the views of some of the latter of them, that they are sup- 
posed to have borrowed much of their doctrine from Christianity. They 
speak of the world as destined to be destroyed by a vast conflagration, 
and succeeded by another new and pure. One of them, addressing a 
mother on the loss of her son, says, ' The sacred assembly of the Scipios 
and Catos shall welcome the youth to the regions of happy souls. Your 
father himself (for there all are known to all) shall embrace his grandson, 
and shall direct his eyes, now furnished with new light, along the course 
of the stars, with delight explaining to him the mysteries of nature, not 
from conjecture, but from certain knowledge.' 

Among the most eminent of the early disciples of the Stoical school, 
were Cleantlies, the celebrated poet and immediate successor of Zeno, and 
Chrysippus, who also became the public teacher in the school at Athens. 
The latter was celebrated as a disputant, and was wont to say, * Give me 
doctrines, and I will find arguments to support them.' He is said to have 
been the author of many hundred treatises ; but of these nothing now re- 
mains excepting a few scattered fragments. Neither have we any written 
productions from Zeno, nor any other of the early stoics. The principal 
authors of this school whose works remain, are Epictetus and Antoninus, 
both of whom lived after the beginning of the Christian era. 

The Academic sect originated with Plato, one of the most eminent 
men of all antiquity. He was descended, on his father's side, from 
Codrus, the last king of Athens, and on his mother's, from the celebrated 
law-giver Solon. His birth occurred at Athens 428 A.C. In youth he 
devoted much time and attention to poetry and painting, and in the 
former so far excelled as to produce many poems of rare merit ; but 
having compared the best of them with the poems of Homer, he was 
induced to commit them to the flames. Captivated by the lectures of 
Socrates, he abandoned the Muses, and thenceforward devoted himself to 
philosophy. After travelling extensively through the East and also in Magna 
Grsecia, he returned to Athens, and opened his school in a public grove, 
from which the sect derived the name of the Academy. Over his door 



430 PLATO. [Lect.XVL 

he placed the inscription, Let none enter here who is ignorant of Geom- 
etry — so highly did he value mathematical science, as a foundation for 
more elevated studies. Plato's death occurred at Athens in the eighty- 
first year of his age, and 347 A.C. 

The Platonic philosophy abounded with peculiarities, and of these one 
of the most remarkable respected the relations of matter to mind. The 
system recognized a supreme intelligence, but maintained the eternity of 
matter ; and while matter receives all its shapes from the will of the in- 
telligence, still it contains a blind refractory force which is the cause of all 
evil. The human soul consists of parts derived from both these — the in- 
telligence and the matter ; and all its impurity results from the inherent 
nature of the latter constituent. 

A very striking peculiarity of the Platonic philosophy was the doctrine 
respecting ideas. It maintained that there exist eternal patterns or 
types, or exemplars of all things — that these exemplars are the only proper 
objects of science — and that to understand them is to know truth. On 
the other hand, all sensible forms — the appearances made to the several 
senses — are only shadows : the forms and shadows addressed to the senses 
— the exemplars or types, to the intellect. These exemplars were called 
ideas. This doctrine respecting matter and ideas essentially controlled 
the system of study in this sect, and their practical morality. To gain 
true science, one must turn away from the things around him and apply 
his mind in the most perfect abstraction, to contemplate and j£ nd out the 
eternal original patterns of things. And to gain moral purity, he must 
mortify and deny the parts of the soul derived from matter, and avoid all 
familiarity with shadows. Hence, probably, the readiness to embrace the 
Platonic system manifested among the Christians of the middle ages, 
when the mystic notion of cleansing the soul by solitude and penance be- 
came so common. 

The Academic sect was very popular, and eminent philosophers succes- 
sively taught its doctrines in the grove. Some adhered closely to the 
views of Plato, and were called disciples of the Old Academy, while 
others departed from them, and formed successively the Middle and the 
New Academy. The Old was begun by Plato himself 400 A.C. ; the 
Middle, by Arcesilaus, about 300 A.C. ; and the New, by Cameades, 
about 180 A.C. The distinguishing point of difference between these 
three branches was their opinion respecting the certainty of human 
knowledge. The Old Academy maintained that certain knowledge can 
be obtained, not of the sensible forms, but only of the eternal exemplars ; 
the Middle, that there is a certainty in things, yet it is beyond the attain- 
ment of the human mind, so that positive assertion is improper ; the 
New that man has the means of knowledge, not infallible, but sufficiently 
certain for all his wants. 

The Peripatetic sect grew out of the Academic, Aristotle, its founder, 



384A.C.] ARISTOTLE. 431 

having long been a pupil of Plato. Born at Stagira 384 A.C., and inheriting 
from his father a considerable fortune, he spent his youth in dissipation ; 
but from the moment he turned his attention to philosophical studies, his 
devotion to learning was almost without a parallel. Having completed 
his course of study in the Academy, he was invited by Philip of Macedon 
to superintend the education of his son Alexander, afterwards the Great. 
When Alexander's studies were closed, he returned to Athens, and as 
Plato, his master, was now dead, he commenced his Lectures in the 
Lyceum, where he taught for twelve years. Accused, at length, by his 
enemies and rivals of impiety, he retired to Chalcis, in Euboea, and there 
remained till his death, which occurred 322 A.C. 

The Peripatetics, according to the established practice of the philoso- 
phers, had their public and their secret doctrine, or the exoteric and esot- 
eric. In his morning walk Aristotle imparted the latter to his particular 
disciples, and in the evening he proclaimed the former to a mixed crowd 
of hearers. Yery contradictory accounts have been given of the essential 
principles of Aristotle and his sect. But nothing, perhaps, was more dis- 
tinctive than the system of syllogistic reasoning, which was introduced by 
its founder, and became so celebrated in subsequent ages, and for so long 
a period held the highest place in the plans of education. Of the early 
disciples of Aristotle, Theophrastus and Strato were the most eminent ; 
and each, in his turn, succeeded their master as teachers in the Lyceum. 

Both Plato and Aristotle were very voluminous writers. Plato, in his 
various dialogues, happily threw into a written form the oral discourses 
of his great master, and thus laid the foundation for a scientific treatment 
of philosophy. All antiquity united in bestowing upon him the epithet 
divine, and in modern times all have acknowledged his merit and ad- 
mired his writings. His works embrace a great variety of subjects — meta- 
physical, political, moral, and dialectic. They are exceedingly valuable, 
both for style and matter — rich in thought, and adorned with beautiful 
and poetical images. 

Aristotle's peculiar merit as a writer is discerned in the clearness and 
order with which he classified the objects of human knowledge, and the 
methodical manner in which he discussed them. By these means he im- 
parted to them that scientific form which has ever since been regularly 
observed in their discussion. He, in this manner, reduced logic to a 
regular system, and laid the foundation of metaphysics. His works con- 
tain a great mass of clear thought and solid matter, although by his insa- 
tiable love of inquiry he was often betrayed into abstruse subtleties, as 
idle as they were dark. Aristotle's works embraced a vast variety of 
subjects, and may be classed under the heads of Logic, Physics, Meta- 
physics, Mathematics, Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, and Poetry. His works 
on logic were published under the name of Organum ; and it was in ref- 



432 EPICURUS. [Lect. XVI. 

erence to this title that Lord Bacon called his celebrated work Novum 
Organum. 

A brief notice of the three principal sects derived from the Italic 
school will close our present remarks. These were the JEleatic, the Epi- 
curean, and the Skeptic. 

The Eleatic sect was founded by Xenophanes of Colophon, who early 
removed from his native country to Sicily, and thence passed over into 
Magna Grsecia. Here he soon became a celebrated disciple in the Pytha- 
gorian school, but, in his own lectures, he advanced new and entirely 
different views from those of the school to which he was attached. This 
sect derived its name from Elea in Magna Graecia, the place where some 
of the founder's most distinguished followers belonged. Its doctrines 
were entirely atheistical. Matter, according to the Eleatic notion, is 
made up of infinitely small atoms, which have no other property than a 
tendency to move. By the eternally varying motions of the atoms, every 
existence and every effect in the universe is caused : yet there is no real 
change except to our senses. The soul of man is thus made material 

The most distinguished supporters of this sect were Parmenides, Zeno 
of Elea, Leucippus, who is said to have been the principal author of the 
atomic theory, and Democritus of Abdera, commonly called the laugh- 
ing philosopher. Another eminent follower of this sect was Protagoras 
of Abdera, who acquired great power and wealth at Athens in the pro- 
fession of sophist, but was finally banished, his writings having been pub- 
licly burned on account of his impiety. 

The Epicurean sect derived its name and origin from Epicurus, a na- 
tive of a small town near Athens. He first gave lectures at Mitylene, 
but afterwards opened his school at Athens, in a garden in which he 
lived, and often supported large numbers of young men who flocked to 
hear him. The doctrines of this sect were derived from the atomic the- 
ory of the Eleatics, and were on the whole atheistic, although not so 
fully and formally so as their source. They believed that all happiness 
was founded in pleasure ; and this principle opened the way for the great 
licentiousness of the later disciples of this school. Epicurus explained 
and limited his language so as to recommend the practice of virtue. It 
might have been his pleasure to be chaste and temperate : we are told it 
was so ; but others find their pleasure in intemperance and luxury ; and 
such was the taste of many of his principal followers. This sect became 
popular, and existed to a very late period ; but of their writings only a 
few trifling fragments remain, though Epicurus alone is said to have writ- 
ten several hundred treatises. Hermarchus succeeded Epicurus, and 
inherited both his books and garden. 



S84A.C] PYRRHO. 433 

The Skeptic sect received its appellation from its doctrines : from its 
founder it was also sometimes called Pyrrhonic. Pyrrho was educated in 
the Eleatic school, and particularly admired the notions of Democritus, 
from whom he drew the elements of his system. He was also instructed 
in the dialectic sophistries of the Megaric sect, and seems to have been 
disgusted with their frivolous disputes. The doctrines of this sect were 
very similar to those of the Middle Academy, and, as their own sect was 
rather unpopular, many real sceptics concealed themselves under that 
honorable name. Their essential peculiarity was, that nothing is certain, 
and that no assertion can be made. Happiness they placed in tranquil- 
lity of mind, and this could be obtained only by absolute indifference to 
all dogmas. They ridiculed the disputes and contradictions of the other 
sects, especially the boasted confidence of the Stoic, and the proud soph- 
istries of the Megaric. But Seneca, in reference to this subject, well 
remarked, 1 1 prefer a man who teaches me trifles to him who teaches me 
nothing : if the Dialectic philosophy leaves me in the dark, the Skeptic 
puts out my eyes.' This sect had its professors and teachers down to the 
time of Sextus Empiricus, who lived in the first half of the third Chris- 
tian century, and whose writings are the principal source of information 
respecting the views of the Skeptics. 
28 



tniuxt tlje innlttnfy. 

ORATORY. 

PISISTRATUS. — THEMISTOCLES. —PERICLES.— ANTIPHOK — ANDRO- 
CIDES. — LYSIAS. — ISOCRATES. — IS^EUS. — LYCURGUS. — DEMOS- 
THENES. — ^SCHINES. — HYPERIDES. — DEMADES. — DINARCHUS. 
— DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS. 

ORATORY, among the Greeks, was of later origin than other branches 
of prose composition. But, though it did not exist in form, as an 
art, at so early a period as some others, yet even in the heroic ages there 
was much of what may be called actual eloquence — practical skill in 
moving the feelings of assembled numbers in civil and military affairs. 
We have abundant evidence of this in the addresses made by the war- 
riors of Homer, which, although doubtless the productions of the poet, 
are yet a direct proof of the existence, and even the success, of rude 
efforts to persuade. 

The example of those historical writers, who were not indifferent to 
the beauties of style, seems to have first suggested to the Greeks the 
advantage of careful attention to the language and manner of their 
spoken addresses. From the time of Solon, 600 A.C., political eloquence 
was much practiced at Athens, and by the emulation of great speakers 
speedily advanced to high perfection. Rhetoric and oratory accordingly 
soon became objects of systematic study, and were indispensable in the 
education of such as wished to gain any public office, or any influence in 
the affairs of the State. Grecian oratory was not, however, either of 
early or sudden growth. It was not, indeed, till after Greece had 
adopted the popular forms of government, and the works of Homer had 
been collected and began to be studied, and after her general prosperity 
and independence allowed her citizens to attend to speaking as an art, 
that Greece exhibited any very eminent orators. 

At the time of Solon, beyond which Grecian eloquence cannot be 
carried back, several of the States had existed much longer than Rome 
had, at the time of Cicero. While eloquence made its first appearance 
thus late, and gradually rose to perfection under the peculiar circum- 
stances of the nation, it continued in power and splendor only for a short 



600A.C.] ORATORY. 435 

period. Its real history must be considered as terminating with the 
usurpation of Philip and the supremacy of Macedon over Southern 
Greece ; so that the whole space of time, during which Grecian oratory 
particularly nourished, includes less than three hundred years. This 
space coincides with the third period of Grecian literature, and extends 
from Solon to Alexander the Great, occupying the space of two hundred 
and sixty-four years. It was, however, the brightest in the annals of 
Greece — a glorious day, at the close of which her sun went down in 
clouds, and never again rose in its native splendor. 

It is also worthy of remark, that whatever glory the Greeks have 
acquired for their eloquence, belongs almost exclusively to Athens. In 
the other States it was never cultivated with success. The orators of 
whose genius any monuments are still preserved, or whose names have 
been recorded as distinguished, were Athenians. Out of Greece proper, 
however, the study nourished, both in the islands and in the settlements 
in Ionia. The Greeks of Sicily were the first who attempted to form 
rules for the art, and the inhabitants of Rhodes had orators that might 
be compared with those of Athens. 

Greek oratory, during the period just mentioned, presents itself under 
three different aspects successively. It exhibits one characteristic appear- 
ance, from the time of Pisistratus to the close of the Persian war ; an- 
other, froni the close of the Persian to the close of the Peloponnesian ; and 
a third, from the close of the Peloponnesian war to the supremacy of 
Macedon. A glance at the peculiar character of the eloquence of these 
three portions, will give us, perhaps, the best general view of the whole. 

Of the first portion of this period no monuments or fragments of the 
oratory now remain. Its character must be drawn altogether from the 
testimony of later periods, and from circumstantial indications. It was 
in this age that the poems of Homer were collected and published ; which 
gave a new impulse to Grecian mind, and unquestionably exerted an in- 
fluence on the language and oratory of the times. As the models of lan- 
guage and style were all in poetry and not in prose, the speeches and the 
compositions of this age were marked by a poetical structure, by some- 
thing of the rhythm and measure of verse. Such, indeed, was the pre- 
ference for metrical composition, that Parmenides taught his philosophy 
in verse, and Solon published his laws in the dress of poetry. Solon is 
ranked among the distinguished orators of the period; and the first cir- 
cumstance that brought him into notice, was a poetical harangue to the 
populace of Athens 

Still, oratory as an art was, at this time, scarcely conceived. The 
orators were nothing more than the favorite leaders of the people — 
chiefly such as had been brave and successful in war — who gained popu- 
lar influence by military enterprize, and were permitted to be powerful 
statesmen because they were fortunate generals. Their speeches were 



436 ORATORY. [Lect. XVII. 

brief, simple, and bold — adorned with few ornaments, and accompanied 
with little action. Such was Pisistratus, whose valor in the field and 
eloquence in the assembly raised him to an authority utterly inconsistent 
with the republican institutions of his country. Such, too, was TJiemis- 
toclcs ; in whom, however, predominated the bravery and art of the 
military chieftain. It was his policy and energy that saved Greece from 
the dominion of Persia. He acquired unlimited sway as a statesman and 
orator ; because, in proposing and urging the plans which his clear and 
comprehensive mind had once formed, he could not but be eloquent ; and 
because he never offered a plan, which he was not able and ready to exe- 
cute with entire success. His eloquence, like his policy, was vigorous and 
decided, bordering on the severe, but dignified and manly. It was alto- 
gether the most distinguished of the age ; and the name of Themistocles 
is therefore selected to mark this era in the history of Grecian eloquence. 

Of the second portion of the period in view, as well as of the first, we 
have no remains that are acknowledged to be genuine, if we except the 
harangues of Antiphon. The number of public speakers was now, how- 
ever, much increased ; and there began to be more preparation, by pre- 
vious study and effort, for the business of addressing the popular assem- 
blies. In this age the orators were men who had devoted their early 
years to the study of philosophy, and whose attainments and political 
talents raised them to the place of statesmen, while this elevation still 
imposed on them the duties of the soldier and the general. The most 
celebrated of these orators were Pericles, Cleon, Atcibiades, Critias, and 
Theramenes. Pericles and Alcibiades exerted the greatest influence 
upon the condition of Athens. The latter, ambitious of glory and fear- 
less of danger, ardent and quick in his feelings, and exceedingly versatile 
in character and principle, was able, notwithstanding a defective pronun- 
ciation and a hesitating delivery, so perfectly to control a popular assem- 
bly and mould their feelings according to his own will, that he was 
regarded as one of the greatest of orators. 

Pericles, however, deserves the chief honor of giving a name to this 
era of eloquence. Born of distinguished parentage, about 495 A.C., and 
educated with every possible degree of care — with talents, also, of the 
very highest order, he qualified himself for public influence by long and 
intense study. When he began to appear in public, he disclosed his 
powers in the assemblies with great caution ; and whenever he spoke he 
impressed his hearers with new convictions of his strength and greatness. 
His information was various and extensive, his views clear and elevated, 
and his feelings and purposes in general highly patriotic and generous. 
Cicero remarks of him, that even when he spoke directly against the will 
of the populace, and against their favorites, what he said was always 
popular. The comic satirists, also, while they ridiculed, and even cursed 
him, acknowledged his excellence ; and so greatly did he shine in learn- 



600A.C] ORATORY. 437 

ing, wisdom, and eloquence, that he ruled Athens for forty years almost 
without a rival. 

Among the various public orations of Pericles, was a funeral eulogium 
pronounced in honor of those who fell in the first battle of the Pelopon- 
nesian war. This oration Thucydides has given us with professed accu- 
racy in his history ; but it is more than probable that we have the mere 
fabrication of the historian, rather than the actual production of the 
orator. The piece may, however, and probably does, indicate the pecu- 
liarities of Pericles and the other speakers of the age ; the distinguishiog 
qualities of all of whose eloquence seem to have been simple grandeur of 
language, rapidity of thought, and brevity, crowded with matter to such 
an extent as even to create occasional obscurity. They appear to have 
had very little of artificial plan, or of rhetorical illustration and orna- 
ment. Their speeches are seldom marked by any of the figures and con- 
trivances to produce effect, which the rules of professed rhetoricians 
brought into use among the latest orators. They have less of the air of 
martial addresses than the harangues of the first period we have noticed, 
but far more of it than appears in the third. Their character is such as 
to show that, while the orator was a statesman of influence in the civil 
council, he was also, at the same time, a commander in war. Such was 
the eloquence of the era which is designated by the name of Pericles. 

But the third period forms the most glorious era of Grecian eloquence, 
and is marked by a name which has ever been allowed to stand preemi- 
nent in the whole history of human eloquence — that of Demosthenes. It 
was an age fruitful in orators, of whose talents many rich and splendid 
monuments still remain. The orator was now no longer necessarily 
united with the general, but was able to control the deliberations of the 
people, although he never encountered the perils of the camp. Oratory 
now became a regular study, and numbers devoted themselves to the 
business of teaching its rules. These teachers, known by the name of 
Sophists and Rhetoricians, made the most arrogant and rididtlous pre- 
tensions, professing to communicate the art of speakiDg copiously and 
fluently on any point whatever. But we must not attach to all, who 
went under this name, the idea of a vain and pompous declaimer ; for 
there were some honorable exceptions, such as Isocrates, who taught the 
art, and whose influence upon the oratory of that period was so great, that 
Cicero gives him the credit of forming its general character. His school 
was the resort of all who aimed at the glory and rewards of eloquence. 

Isocrates, Lysias, Isceus, JEschines, and Demosthenes, are the bright 
names in the constellation which marks this era. But besides these, 
though of less eminence, the names of Andocides, Dinarchus, Hyperides, 
and Lycurgus, are also recorded, as distinguished speakers. These, with 
Antiphon of the preceding era, form the illustrious company of the ten 
Athenian orators. They could have been, however, only a small part of 



438 ORATORY. [Lect. XVII 

the number in the profession in this period, as we might judge, even had 
no names been recorded, from the fact that at its very close there were 
at least ten, and according to some authorities, thirty, whom the Mace- 
donian conqueror demanded to be delivered up to him as hostile to his 
supremacy. 

The general characteristics of these orators are to be found, rather in 
the state and circumstances of the profession, than in the form or nature 
of the eloquence itself. Each of the more eminent orators had his dis- 
tinguishing peculiarities ; and this makes it difficult to mark the promi- 
nent traits which might be stamped upon all. It is, notwithstanding, 
easy to notice the influence of the system of art, to which the speakers 
of this age thought it necessary to attend. Their orations contain too 
little of the plain and direct simplicity of former times, and much, often 
far too much, of the ambush and artifice of logic — the flourish and sound 
of mere rhetoric. We discover, also, frequently the orator's conscious 
ness of influence, arising from his skill in speaking. It was an age when 
the populace flocked to the assemblies and the courts of justice for the 
sake of hearing and being affected — when even the unprincipled dema- 
gogue could, by the spell of his tongue, raise himself to the archonship 
of Athens. 

This period furnished also a greater number and a greater variety of 
occasions for the display of oratorical talents, than almost any other in 
the whole history of ancient Greece. Numerous State prosecutions, 
similar to that in which Lysias engaged against Eratosthenes, grew out 
of the disturbances and revolutions connected with the Peloponnesian 
war, and these necessarily drew forth the genius of opposing advocates. 
Public discussions likewise became frequent upon different subjects rela- 
ting to war, politics, and government, which opened a wide field, not 
merely for harangue, but for studied and labored composition. At the 
close of the period too, the encroachments of Philip of Macedon on the 
Grecian rights, afforded an ample theme for both the ambitious dema- 
gogue aiK the zealous patriot. This circumstance was, perhaps, the 
cause of the peculiar energy and warmth of feeling, which distinguished 
much of the oratory of the period. Although the writers and speakers 
differed in opinion as to the true policy of the Greeks, their orations 
breathe a common spirit of national attachment, and national pride and 
confidence. Indeed, the patriotism and the genius of Greece seem to 
have exhausted themselves in the efforts of this last day of her inde- 
pendence and her glory. In Demosthenes she heard the last tones of her 
favorite art, as she did the last remonstrance against her submission to 
servitude. 

Such is a glance at the rise and progress of Grecian eloquence. Late 
in its origin, confined chiefly to Athens, flourishing only for a compara- 
tively short time, marked successively by the eras of Themistocles, 



146 A.C.] ORATORY. 439 

Pericles, and Demosthenes, it ended its career when the country lost its 
independence, but with a glory that is gone out into all lands, and will 
survive through all ages. It should be observed, however, that Cicero 
and other ancient writers speak of the eloquence of the period immedi- 
ately subsequent to Philip and Alexander ; and this we shall here briefly 
notice. 

True eloquence, says Scholl, a distinguished German critic — that 
which speaks to the heart and passions of men, and which not merely 
convinces, but carries away the hearer, ceased with the fall of liberty. 
Under the successors of Alexander, not finding any object worthy of its 
exertions, it fled from the scenes of politics to the retreats of the schools. 
Athens, degraded from her eminence, no longer was the exclusive residence 
of an art, which had once thrown such lustre over her name and history. 
From this time, instead of the orators of Attica, we hear only of the 
orators of Asia. In reality, however, instead of orators at all among 
the Greeks anywhere, we find, after this time, only rhetoricians. Of the 
various Asiatic schools just alluded to, that of Rhodes, founded by 
iEschines, was the most famous. In these institutions the masters gave 
out themes, on which the young pupils exercised their talents. These 
were frequently historical subjects — often the questions which had exer- 
cised the great orators of the previous age. But such performances had 
not for their object to convince judges, or force an assembly to action : 
the highest aim now was to awaken admiration in hearers, who wished 
not to be moved, but to be entertained. The noble simplicity of the old 
orators was exchanged for a style overcharged with rhetorical ornaments. 
Hegesias of Magnesia is regarded as the father of the new style of 
eloquence and composition which now appeared, and which, as has been 
already observed, was termed Asiatic. But the principal name worthy 
of notice, after the time of Alexander, is Demetrius Phalereus, who was 
appointed governor of Athens, by Cassander, king of Macedonia. He 
was the last of the great orators of Greece ; and Cicero speaks of him 
with considerable commendation, as the most learned and polished of all 
after the ancient masters. But he describes his influence as substituting 
softness and tenderness instead of power — cultivating sweetness rather 
than force — a sweetness which diffuses itself through the soul without 
stirring the passions — forming an eloquence which impressed on the mind 
nothing but its own symmetry, and which never left, like the eloquence 
of Pericles, a sting along with the delight. 

Here our general view of Grecian oratory closes ; because everything 
pertaining to the subject after the fall of Corinth, 146 A.C., belongs 
rather to the departments of Sophists and Rhetoricians. It is important, 
however, to allude to the three branches, into which Grecian oratory was 
divided by the teachers. These were the deliberative, the legal or judi- 
cial, and the demonstrative or panegyrical. Demosthenes is the un- 
rivalled master in the first : Lysias and Isseus present rich specimens of 



440 ANTIPHON. [Lect. XYII. 

the second ; and the best performances of Isocrates belong to the third. 
But it must be remarked that no orator was exclusively confined to either 
branch : according to his preference, he might thunder in the assembly 
of the people, argue in the court of justice, or declaim before the occa- 
sional and promiscuous concourse. 

From these general remarks we now proceed to notice more particu- 
larly each individual orator of whom any particular remains still exist. 
These are Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isceus, Lycurgus, 
Demosthenes, JEschines, Hyperides, Demades, Dinar'thus, and Demetrius 
Phalereus. 

Antiphon, the most ancient of the ten Attic orators contained in the 
Alexandrine canon, was the son of Sophilus the Sophist, and was born at 
Rhamnus in Attica, 480 A.C. He possessed very eminent talents, and 
a firm character ; and is said, by some of his contemporaries, to have 
been educated partly by Pythodorus, though, according to others, he 
owed his education entirely to himself. 

"When Antiphon was a young man, the fame of Gorgias was at its 
height. The object of Gorgias' sophistical school of oratory was more to 
dazzle and captivate the hearer by brilliancy of diction and rhetorical 
artifices, than to produce a solid conviction based upon sound arguments ; 
it was, in short, a school for show-speeches ; and the practical purposes of 
oratory, in the courts of justice and the popular assembly, lay beyond its 
sphere. Antiphon perceived this deficiency, and formed a higher and 
more practical view of the art to which he devoted himself ; that is, he 
wished to produce conviction in the minds of the hearers by means of a 
thorough examination of the subjects proposed — and this not with a view 
to the narrow limits of the school, but to the courts and the assembly. 
Hence, the ancients call Antiphon the inventor of public oratory, or 
say that he raised it, at least, to a high position. 

Antiphon was thus the first who regulated practical eloquence by 
certain theoretical laws, and he opened a school in which he taught 
rhetoric. Thucydides, the historista, a pupil of Antiphon, speaks of his 
master with the highest esteem, and many of the excellences of his style 
are ascribed by the ancients to the influence of Antiphon. At the same 
time, Antiphon occupied himself with writing speeches for others, who 
delivered them in the courts of justice; and as he was the first who 
received money for such orations — a practice which subsequently became 
quite general — he was severely attacked and ridiculed, especially by the 
comic poets, Plato and Pisander. These attacks may, however, have 
been owing to his political opinions, for he was a strenuous opposer of 
democracy. This unpopularity, together with his own reserved character, 
prevented him from ever appearing as a speaker, either in the courts or 
the assembly; and the only time he spoke in public was in 411 A.C, 



480A.C] ANTIPHON. 441 

when he defended himself against the charge of treachery. His defence 
proved, however, unavailing ; for he, like Socrates, was publicly executed 
at Athens, being then in the sixty-ninth year of his age. 

As an orator, Antiphon was highly esteemed by all antiquity. Her- 
mogenes says of his orations, that they were clear, true in the expression 
of feeling, faithful to nature, and consequently convincing. Other author- 
ities say, that his orations were beautiful but not graceful, or that they 
had something austere or antique about them. The want of freshness 
and gracefulness is very obvious in the orations still extant, but more 
especially in those actually spoken by Antiphon's clients. His language 
is pure and correct, and generally of remarkable clearness. The treat- 
ment and solution of the point at issue are always striking and in- 
teresting. 

Sixty orations of different kinds were attributed by the ancients to 
Antiphon ; but Csecilius, a rhetorician of the Augustan age, declared 
twenty-five of them to be spurious. We now possess only fifteen of his 
orations, and three of these were written by him for others. The re- 
maining twelve were written as specimens for his school, or exercises on 
fictitious cases. They are a peculiar phenomenon in the history of ancient 
oratory ; for they are divided into three tetralogies, each of which con- 
sists of four orations — two accusations and two defences on the same 
subject. The subject of the first tetralogy is a murder, the perpetrator 
of which is yet unknown ; that of the second, an unpremeditated murder ; 
and that of the third, a murder committed in self-defence. The clear- 
ness which distinguishes his other three orations is not perceptible in these 
tetralogies, which partly arises from the corrupt and mutilated state in 
which they have come down to us. 

A great number of the orations of Antiphon, and in fact all those still 
extant, have for their subject the commission of a murder. The genuine- 
ness of these orations has, however, been the subject of much discussion, 
though the best critics at present pretty generally agree that all are 
really the works of Antiphon. As to the historical or antiquarian value 
of the three real speeches — the tetralogies must be left out of the ques- 
tion here — it must be remarked, that they contain more information than 
any other ancient work respecting the mode of proceeding in the criminal 
courts of Athens. All the orations of Antiphon are printed in the collec- 
tions of the Attic orators, edited by Aldus, Stephens, Reiske, Dobson, and 
others, though perhaps the best editions are those of Baiter and Sauppe. 

In addition to these orations, the ancients ascribe to Antiphon a work 
on Rhetoric, in three books, and a collection of model speeches, or exer- 
cises for the use of himself or his scholars ; though it is probable his 
tetralogies belonged to the latter. His treatise on Ehetoric is said to have 
been the first work ever written on that subject ; but this statement must 
be limited to the theory of oratory in the courts of justice, and in the 
assembly ; for treatises on the art of composing show-speeches had been 



442 ANDOCIDES. [Lkct. XVII. 

written by several sophists before *his time. The work is occasionally 
referred to by ancient rhetoricians and grammarians, bnt it is now lost. 

Andocides was the son of Leogoras, and was born at Athens 467 A.C. 
His family was so ancient as to be able to trace their pedigree up to 
Odysseus and the god Hermes. Being a noble, he, of course, joined the 
oligarchical party at Athens, and through their influence obtained, in 436 
A.C, the command of a fleet of twenty-five sail, the design of which was 
to protect the Corcyrseans against the Corinthians. He was afterwards 
employed on various occasions as ambassador to Thessaly, Macedonia, 
Molossia, Thesprotia, Italy, and Sicily ; and although he was frequently 
attacked for his political opinions, yet he sustained himself until 415 A.C, 
when he became involved in the charge brought against Alcibiades, for 
having profaned the mysteries and mutilated the Hermse. It appeared 
the more probable that Andocides was an accomplice in the latter of 
these crimes, which was regarded as a preliminary step towards over- 
throwing the democratic constitution, since the Hermes standing near 
his own house was among the very few that had not been injured. 

Whether an accomplice or not in the impiety of Alcibiades, Andocides 
was seized, cast into prison, tried, condemned, and suffered the sentence 
of disfranchisement. He now left Athens, and passed some years in 
exile; but when, in 411 A.C, the oligarchical government of the Four 
Hundred was established, he returned to Athens ; but, being suspected 
even by his own party, he was brought to trial for his malpractices 
abroad, and only saved his life by flying to the altar as a sanctuary. So 
vacillating was his character, and so faithless his conduct, that he was 
banished from his native land five times, and at last died in exile. The 
life of this truly great man was chequered by misfortunes, numerous even 
for the troubled times in which he lived ; but they were chiefly attrib- 
utable to his own improper personal conduct, and his political insin- 
cerity. 

The orations of Andocides have little to recommend them in point of 
style and oratorical skill ; but for the historical and political information 
which they contain, they are invaluable. Of these orations four are still 
extant, the best of which is the one entitled ' On my Return,' and which 
was delivered 411 A.C, on his return to Athens after his first banish- 
ment. Besides this oration we have his own defence against the charge 
of impiety, delivered in 415 A. C, an oration against Alcibiades in 416 
A.C, and one on peace with the Lacedaemonians in 393 A.C 

Lysias was born at Athens, 458 A.C He was the son of CerJhalus, a 
native of Syracuse, who had removed to Athens on invitation of Pericles. 
In 443 A.C, when Lysias was little more than fifteen years of age, he 
and his two brothers joined the company of Athenians who went as colo- 
nists to Thurium in Italy. He there completed his education under the 



411A.C] LYCIAS. 443 

instruction of two Syracusans, Tisias and Nicias, and afterwards enjoyed 
great esteem among the Thurians, and even seems to have taken part in 
the administration of the government of the young republic. From a 
passage in Aristotle, we learn that he devoted some time to the teaching 
of rhetoric, though it is uncertain whether he entered upon this profession 
while yet at Thurium, or did not commence it until after his return to 
Athens, where we know that Isgeus was one of his pupils. 

In 411 A.C., when Lysias had attained the age of forty-seven, after 
the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, all persons, both in Sicily and in 
the south of Italy, who were suspected of favoring the cause of the Athe- 
nians, were exposed to persecution ; and Lysias, together with three 
hundred others, was exiled by the Spartan party from Thurium, as a 
partisan of the Athenians. He now returned to Athens ; but there, too, 
great misfortunes awaited him — for, during the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, 
after the battle of iEgospotami, he was looked upon as an enemy of the 
government, his large property was confiscated, and he was thrown into 
prison with a view to be put to death. But he escaped from Athens, and 
took refuge at Megara. His attachment to Athens, however, was so 
great, that when Thrasybulus, at the head of the patriots, marched from 
Phyle to liberate their country, Lysias joyfully sacrificed all that yet 
remained of his fortune, and sent to the assistance of the patriots two 
thousand drachmas and two hundred shields, and engaged a band of three 
hundred and two mercenaries. Thrasybulus procured him the Athenian 
franchise, as a reward for his generosity ; but Archinus afterwards in- 
duced the people to declare it void, because it had been conferred without 
a probuleuma ; and Lysias henceforth lived at Athens as an isoteles, 
occupying himself, as it appears, solely with writing judicial speeches for 
others, and died 378 A.C., in the eightieth year of his age. 

Lysias was one of the most prolific writers of orations that Athens 
ever produced — antiquity attributing to him no less than four hundred 
and twenty-five productions of this kind, though the ancient critics were 
generally of opinion that no more than two hundred and thirty of them 
were genuine productions of Lysias. Of these orations thirty-five only 
are extant, and even among these some are incomplete, and others are 
probably spurious. Of fifty-three others we possess only a few fragments. 
These orations were chiefly written after his return from Thurium to 
Athens ; and of the whole number that against Eratosthenes only, com- 
posed in 403 A.C., was delivered by himself in court. Some among 
them, doubtless, belong to an earlier period of the author's life, when he 
treated his art more from a theoretical point of view ; and they must be 
regarded, therefore, as rhetorical exercises. But from the commence- 
ment of his speech against Eratosthenes, we must conclude that his real 
career as an orator began about 403 A.C. 

Among the lost works of Lycias, a manual of rhetoric may be men- 
tioned — probably one of his early productions. 



444 ISOCRATES. [Lect. XVII. 

The only criticism upon Lycias of any importance, which has come 
down to us, is that of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, together with a few 
remarks of Photius. According to the judgment of Dionysius, and the 
occasional remarks of others, all of which are sustained by a careful 
examination of the orations still extant, the diction of Lycias is perfectly 
pure, and may be looked upon as the best canon of the Attic idiom ; his 
language is natural and simple, but at the same time noble and dignified : 
it is always clear and lucid ; the copiousness of his style does not injure 
its precision : nor can his rhetorical embellishments be considered as im- 
pairing the charming simplicity of his style. His delineations of charac- 
ter are always striking and true to life. But what characterizes his ora- 
tions above those of all other ancients, is the indescribable gracefulness 
and elegance which pervade all of them, without, in the least, impairing 
their power and energy ; and this gracefulness was considered as so pecu- 
liar a feature in all Lysias 1 productions, that Dionysius thought it a fit 
criterion by which the genuine works of Lysias might be distinguished 
from the spurious pieces that went by his name. The manner in which he 
treats his subjects is equally deserving of high praise ; and it is, therefore, 
no matter of surprise that, among the many orations he wrote for others, 
two only are said to have been unsuccessful. 

Isocrates was the son of Theodorus, and was born at Athens 436 A.C. 
His father was a man of considerable wealth, and owned a manufactory 
of flutes or other musical instruments, on account of which Isocrates was 
often ridiculed by the comic poets of the age ; but Theodorus made good 
use of his property, in procuring for his son the best education that could 
be obtained. The most celebrated instructors of the age are mentioned 
among his teachers ; such as Tisias, Grorgias, Prodicus, and also Socrates 
and Theramenes. 

Isocrates was naturally timid, and of a weakly constitution, on account 
of which he abstained from taking any direct part in the political affairs of 
his country, but resolved, by teaching and writing, to contribute towards 
the development of eloquence, and thus to guide others in the path for 
which his own constitution unfitted him. According to some accounts, 
he devoted himself to the teaching of rhetoric for the purpose of amelio- 
rating his circumstances, as he had lost his paternal inheritance in the 
war against the Lacedsemonians. Isocrates first established a school of 
rhetoric in the island of Chios, but his success does not appear to have 
been very great, since he is said to have had only nine pupils. "While in 
Chios he, however, exerted himself in another direction, and regulated 
the political condition of that island after the model of Athens. 

His ill success in Chios, induced Isocrates to return to his native 
place ; and having opened in Athens a school of rhetoric, such was his 
success that his school soon contained a hundred pupils, each of whom 
paid him one thousand drachmas. In addition to this he made a large 



355A.C] IS OC RATES. 445 

income by writing orations ; thus Plutarch, relates that Nicocles, king of 
Cyprus, gave Isocrates twenty talents fbr a single performance of this 
kind. In this manner he gradually acquired a considerable property, 
and he was several times called upon to undertake the expensive trier- 
archy. This happened first in 355 A.C., on which occasion he was ex- 
cused on account of ill health; but when, in 352 A.C., he was again 
called upon, he performed the duty in the most splendid manner. One 
of his finest orations refers to this event* 

Isocrates has the great merit of being* the first who clearly saw the 
great value and importance of oratory in its practical application to 
public life and the affairs of the State. At the same time he endeavored 
to base public oratory upon sound moral principles, and thus to rescue 
it from the influence of the sophists, who used and abused it for any and 
every purpose; for Isocrates, although educated by the mos^ eminent 
sophists, was himself the avowed enemy of all sophistry. He was not, 
however, altogether free from their influence ; and what is most con- 
spicuous in his political discourses, is the absence of all practical knowl- 
edge of real political life, so that his fine theories, though they were un- 
questionably well meant, bear a strong resemblance to the visions of an 
enthusiast. The influence which he exercised on his country by his 
oratory must have been limited, since his exertions were confined to the 
school; but through his school he had the greatest possible influence 
upon the development of public oratory ; for the most eminent states- 
men, philosophers, orators, and historians of the time, were trained in it, 
and afterwards developed, each in his particular way, the principles they 
had imbibed in his school. 

Of all the rhetoricians of antiquity, none had so many disciples that 
afterwards shed lustre on their country as Isocrates. Whether the 
political views he entertained were practical and wise, or not, it must be 
confessed that he was a sincere lover of his native land, and that the 
greatness and glory of Athens were the chief objects for which he was 
laboring; and hence, when, in 338 A.C., the battle of Chseronea had 
destroyed the last hopes of freedom and independence, Isocrates put an 
end to his own existence — unable to survive the downfall of his beloved 
country. 

The language of Isocrates is the purest and most refined Attic dialect, 
and in this respect forms a great contrast with the natural simplicity of 
Lysias, as well as with the sublime power of Demosthenes. His artificial 
style is more elegant than graceful, and more ostentatious than pleasing ; 
the carefully-rounded periods, the frequent application of figurative lan- 
guage and figurative expressions, are features which remind us of the 
sophists ; and although his sentences flow very melodiously, yet they 
become wearisome and monotonous by the perpetual occurrence of the 
same over-refined periods, which are not relieved by being interspersed 
with shorter and easier sentences. It should be remembered, however, 



446 IS^EUS. [Lect. XVIL 

that Isocrates wrote his orations to be read, and not to be recited in public. 
The immense care he bestowed upon their composition, and the time he 
spent in elaborating and polishing them, may be inferred from the state- 
ment of Quintilian, who assures us that he spent ten years on his Pane- 
gyric oration alone. To this very care and labor in the arrangement and 
treatment of his subjects, is to be attributed the superiority of Isocrates 
to Lysias and the other orators of the age. 

Antiquity possessed sixty orations that were attributed to Isocrates, 
but Caecilius, a rhetorician of the age of Augustus, recognized but 
twenty-eight of them as genuine ; and of these only twenty-one have 
come down to us. Eight of these were written for judicial purposes in 
civil cases, and intended to serve as models for this species of oratory — 
all the others are political discourses or show-speeches, intended to be 
read by a* large public; they are particularly characterized by the ethical 
element on which his political views were based. Besides these entire 
orations, we have the titles and fragments of twenty-seven other orations, 
which are referred to under this author's name. Ten letters also are 
attributed to Isocrates, said to have been written to friends on political 
questions "of the day ; and also a scientific manual of rhetoric. Of the 
latter, however, only a few fragments have been preserved — not sufficient 
to enable us to form any correct judgment of the general merits of the 
work. 

Isasus was the son of Diagoras, and was born at Calchis, in Eubcea ; 
but at what precise date is uncertain. He early removed to Athens, and 
there flourished between 400 A.C. and 348 A.C. ; and is represented ^o 
have been instructed in oratory by both Lysias and Isocrates. He was 
afterwards engaged in writing judicial orations for others, and finally 
established a rhetorical school al Athens, in which Demosthenes is said 
to have been one of his pupils. Suidas states that Isaeus instructed him 
gratuitously, but Plutarch says that he received ten thousand drachmas 
for his instruction ; and also remarks that Isseus composed for Demos- 
thenes the speeches delivered against his guardians, or at least assisted 
him in their composition. All farther particulars about his life are un- 
known, and were so even in the time of Dionysius, by whom his name 
even is not mentioned among the disciples of Isocrates. 

Antiquity contained sixty-four orations which bore the name of Isaeus, 
but the ancient critics recognized fifty only of them as genuine. Of these 
only eleven have come down to us ; but we possess fragments and the 
titles of fifty-six speeches ascribed to him. The eleven extant orations 
are all on subjects connected with disputed inheritances ; and Isaeus 
seems to have been particularly well acquainted with the laws relating to 
inheritance. Ten of these orations had been known from the revival 
of letters ; but the eleventh was first published from a Florentine manu- 
script in 1785. 



396A.C] LYCURGUS. 447 

The oratory of Isaeus resembles, in many respects, that of his teacher, 
Lysias. The style of both is pure, clear, and concise ; but while Lysias 
is at the same time simple and graceful, Isaeus evidently strives to attain 
a higher degree of polish and refinement, without, however, in the least 
injuring the powerful and impressive character of his oratory. The same 
spirit is visible in the manner in which he handles his subjects, especially 
in their skilful division, and in the artful manner in which he interweaves 
his argument with various parts of the exposition, whereby his orations 
become like a painting in which light and shade are distributed with a 
distinct view to produce certain effects. It was chiefly in consequence of 
this mode of management that Isaeus was envied and censured by his 
contemporaries, as if he had tried to deceive and misguide his hearers. 
He was one of the first orators who turned the attention of his country- 
men to a scientific cultivation of political oratory ; but excellence in this 
department of the art was not attained till the time of Demosthenes. 

Lycurgus was born at Athens 396 A.C., and was the son of Lyco- 
phron, who belonged to the first order of Athenian nobility. In his early 
life Lycurgus devoted himself to the study of philosophy in the school of 
Plato, but he afterwards became one of the disciples of Isocrates, and 
entered upon public life at* a comparatively early age. He was appointed 
three successive times to the office of manager of the public revenue, and 
held his office each time for five years, beginning with 337 AC. The 
conscientiousness with which he discharged the duties of this office en- 
abled him to raise the public revenue to the sum of twelve hundred tal- 
ents. This, as well as the unwearied activity with which he labored both 
for increasing the security and splendor of the city of Athens, gained for 
him the universal confidence of the people to such a degree, that when 
Alexander the Great demanded, among other opponents of the Macedo- 
nian interest, the surrender of Lycurgus also, who had, in conjunction 
with Demosthenes, exerted himself against the intrigues of Macedonia 
even as early as the reign of Philip, the people of Athens clung to him, 
and boldly refused to deliver him up. 

Lycurgus was also entrusted with the superintendence of the city, and 
the preserving of public discipline; and the severity with which he 
watched over the conduct of the citizens, became almost proverbial. 
He had a noble taste for everything that was beautiful and grand, as ho 
showed by the buildings he erected or contemplated, both for the use ot 
the citizens and the ornament of the city ; and such was his integrity > 
that even private persons deposited with him large sums of money, which 
they wished to be kept in safety. He was also the author of several 
legislative enactments, of which he enforced the strictest observance. 
One of his laws forbade women to ride in chariots at the celebration of 
the mysteries; and when his own wife transgressed this law, she was 
fined ; another ordained that bronze statues should be erected to iEschy- 



448 DEMOSTHENES. [Lect. XVII. 

lus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and that copies of their tragedies should 
be made and preserved in the public archives. 

The ' Lives of the Ten Orators,' ascribed to Plutarch, contain many 
and characteristic features of Lycurgus, from which we infer that he was 
one of the noblest specimens of old Attic virtue, and a worthy contem- 
porary of Demosthenes. He often appeared as a successful accuser in 
the Athenian courts, but he himself was as often accused by others, 
though he always, and even in the last days of his life, succeeded in 
silencing his enemies. At his death, which occurred 323 A.C., he held 
an important office connected with the theatre of Dionysus. A fragment 
of an inscription, containing the account which he rendered to the State, 
of his administration of the finances, is still extant. Among the various 
honors which were conferred upon him was one by the archon Anaxicra 
tes which ordered that a bronze statue should be erected to his memory 
in the Ceramicus, and that he and his eldest son should be entertained 
in the prytaneum at the public expense. 

The ancients mention fifteen orations of Lycurgus as extant in their 
day ; but the titles of at least twenty have been preserved. With the 
exception, however, of one entire oration against Leocrates, and some 
fragments of others, all the rest are lost, so that*our knowledge of his 
skill and style, as an orator, is very incomplete. Dionysius and other 
ancient critics draw particular attention to the ethical tendency of his 
orations, but they censure the harshness of his metaphors, the inconsist- 
ency in the arrangement of his subject, and his frequent digressions. His 
style is noble and grand, but neither elegant nor pleasing. Besides his 
orations two declamations are mentioned by Theon, as the works of Ly- 
curgus ; but the author must have been a different personage from Ly- 
curgus, the Attic orator. 

Demosthenes, the prince of orators, was the son of Demosthenes, a 
sword manufacturer, and was born in one of the boroughs of Athens 385 
A.C. His father, at his death, which occurred when Demosthenes was 
only seven years of age, left his family and his property, which amounted 
to fourteen talents, under the care of Aphobus, his nephew, a son of his 
brother, and an old friend, Therippides, on condition that the first should 
marry the widow, and receive with her a dowry of eighty minse ; the 
second, marry the daughter on her attaining the age of maturity, and 
receive at once two talents ; and the third receive the interest of seventy 
minse, till Demosthenes, the son, should come of age. But the first, two 
of the guardians refused to comply with the stipulations of the will, and 
all three, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the family, united in 
squandering, or appropriating to their own purposes, a great portion of 
the property, which, by a prudent administration, might easily have 
been doubled during Demosthenes' minority. 

When Demosthenes, accordingly, became of age, only one-twelfth of 



366A.C] DEMOSTHENES. 449 

his father's- large property was left ; and the shameful conduct on the 
part of his own relations and guardians which had wasted it, unquestion- 
ably exercised a great influence on the mind and character of Demos- 
thenes ; for it was probably during that early period that, suffering as 
he did through the injustice of those from whom he had a right to expect 
protection, his strong feeling of right and wrong was planted and devel- 
oped in him — a feeling which characterized his whole subsequent life. 
He was thus thrown upon his own resources, and the result was great 
self-reliance, independence of judgment, and his oratory, which was the 
only art by which he could hope to get justice done to himself. 

Although Demosthenes passed his youth amidst such troubles and 
vexations, we are not hence to infer with Plutarch, that he grew up 
neglected and without any education at all. The very fact that his 
guardians are accused of having refused to pay his teachers, shows that 
he received some kind of education at least ; and this idea is confirmed 
by Demosthenes' own statement, though it cannot be supposed that his 
education was anything more than elementary. The many illustrious 
personages that are mentioned as his teachers, must be supposed to have 
become connected with his studies after he had attained the age of man- 
hood. He is even said to have been instructed in philosophy by Plato ; 
but while we admit that he may have known and esteemed Plato, it is 
more than doubtful whether he was ever one of his scholars. He is also 
said to have been instructed in oratory by Isocrates ; but, according to 
the most accurate information that we can obtain, he merely studied Iso- 
crates' treatise on rhetoric. 

That Demosthenes was, however, instructed in oratory by Isseus, is 
more than probable ; for at that time Isseus was the most eminent orator 
of Athens in all matters connected with the laws of inheritance — the 
very thing which Demosthenes needed. This idea is farther sustained 
by the fact, that the earliest of Demosthenes' orations — those against 
Aphobus and Onetor, bear so strong a resemblance to those of Isseus, 
that the ancients themselves believed that they were either composed by 
Isseus for Demosthenes, or that the latter had written them under the 
direction of the former. We may therefore suppose, without much 
hesitation, that during the latter years of his minority, Demosthenes 
privately prepared himself for the career of an orator, to which he was 
urged on by his peculiar circumstances, no less than by the admiration 
he felt for the orators of his time, and that during the first years after 
he had attained the age of manhood, he availed himself of the instructions 
of Isseus. 

In 366 A.C., immediately after Demosthenes became of age, he called 
upon his guardians to render him an account of their administration of 
his property; but by intrigue they contrived to defer the matter for two 
years, which was, perhaps, the less disagreeable to him, as it afforded 
him an opportunity to acquire the legal knowledge and oratorical power 

29 



450 DEMOSTHENES. [Lect. XVII. 

which he required to enable him to come forward in his own cause with 
any hope of success. In the course of these two years, however, the sub- 
ject was twice investigated by the magistrates, and was decided each 
time in favor of Demosthenes. At length, in the third year after he 
became of age, Demosthenes, in 364 A.O., brought his accusation against 
Aphobus before the archon Timocrates, reserving to himself the right to 
bring similar charges against Demophon and Therippides ; which, how- 
ever, he appears, for some reason, never to have done. Aphobus was 
condemned to pay a fine of ten talents; notwithstanding he resorted, 
during the trial, to every intrigue possible, for the purpose of preventing 
the judgment from going against him. The extant orations of Demos- 
thenes against Aphobus, who still endeavored to prevent him from taking 
possession of his property, all refer to these transactions. 

Demosthenes had thus gained a signal victory over his enemies, not- 
withstanding all the extraordinary disadvantages under which he labored ; 
for his physical constitution was weak, and his organ of speech defective 
— whence, probably, he derived the nickname of stammerer — and it was 
only through the most unwearied and persevering exertions that he even- 
tually succeeded in removing the obstacles and overcoming the difficulties 
which nature had placed in his way. These exertions were probably 
made by him after he had attained the age of manhood ; and in this 
manner, and by speaking in various civil cases, he prepared himself for 
the career of a political orator and statesman. Whether Demosthenes, 
like most of his predecessors, engaged in the business of teaching rhetoric 
or not, is rather uncertain, though some of his Greek biographers seem 
to think that he did. 

The suit of Demosthenes against Aphobus, made the formidable 
Midias his implacable enemy ; and the danger to which he thus became 
exposed was the more fearful, since, except his personal powers and 
virtues, he had nothing to oppose to Midias, who was the most active 
member of a faction, which, though yet without any definite political 
tendency, was preparing the ruin of the republic by violating its laws and 
sacrificing its resources to personal and selfish interests. The first acts 
of open hostility were committed in 361 A.C., when Midias forced his 
way into the house of Demosthenes and openly insulted the members of 
his family. This led Demosthenes to bring two successive actions against 
him ; but such was the influence of Midias and his friends, that they 
found means to prevent the decision being given for a period of eight 
years. The resolute and determined spirit of Demosthenes at length so 
irritated Midias, that he resolved to seek the first opportunity to take 
revenge upon him ; and this opportunity presented itself in 354 A.C., as 
Demosthenes had, in that year, voluntarily undertaken the choregia. 
Midias, on this occasion, not only endeavored in all possible ways to pre- 
vent Demosthenes from discharging his office in its proper form, but 
attacked him with open violence during the celebration of the great 



356A.C] DEMOSTHENES. 451 

Dionysia. Such an act, committed in the presence of the whole com- 
munity, demanded reparation, and Demosthenes, accordingly, brought a 
suit against him for this purpose. Public opinion condemned Midias, 
and it was in vain that he used every possible effort to intimidate Demos- 
thenes, who remained firm in spite of all his enemy's machinations, until 
at length Midias was compelled to propose an amicable arrangement, 
which Demosthenes accepted, and withdrew his accusation. 

Demosthenes had, some years before this event, appeared as a speaker 
in the public assembly; for, in 355 A.C., he had delivered his orations 
against Lep tines and Androtion, and in 353 A.C., the oration against 
Timocrates. The general esteem which Demosthenes, at that early 
period, enjoyed, is sufficiently attested by the fact, that in 354 A.C., not- 
withstanding all the intrigues of Midias, he was elevated to a most honor- 
able position by the suffrages of his fellow citizens, and in the year fol- 
lowing he conducted, in the capacity of architheoros, the usual theoria, 
which the State of Athens sent to the festival of the Nemean Zeus. The 
active part he took in public affairs is farther attested by the orations 
which belong to this period. In 354 A.C. he spoke against the projected 
expedition to Eubcea, though without success, and he himself joined in it 
under Phocion. In the same year he delivered an oration, in which he 
successfully dissuaded the Athenians from their foolish scheme of under- 
taking a war against Persia ; and in 353 A.C. he spoke for the Megalo- 
politans, and opposed the Spartans, who had solicited the aid of Athens 
to reduce Megalopolis. 

All these individual efforts of Demosthenes were, however, but prepar- 
atory to his great public career, which properly commenced 356 A.C, as 
one of the leading statesmen of Athens ; and henceforth the history of 
his life is closely mixed up with that of his country ; for there is no 
question affecting the public good, in which he did not take a most active 
part, and support with all the power of his oratory what he considered 
right and beneficial to the State. 

Philip of Macedon had, two years previous to that time, deliberately 
commenced the operations, the ultimate design of which was to enslave 
southern Greece ; and in every step he took he found the vigilant eye of 
Demosthenes upon him, exposing his hypocrisy and thwarting his pur- 
poses. His patriotic feelings and convictions against Macedonian aggran- 
dizement, drew forth his Philippics — perhaps the most splendid series of 
orations ever delivered. They did not, it is true, produce the desired 
result, but the fault was not his, and the cause of their failure must be 
sought in the state of general dissolution in the Greek republics at the 
time ; for, while Philip occupied his threatening position, the Phocians 
were engaged in a war for life and death with the Thebans ; the States 
of Peloponnesus looked upon one another with mistrust and hatred ; and it 
was only with great difficulty that Athens could maintain a shadow of 
W former supremacy. Under all these disadvantages the surpassing 



452 DEMOSTHENES. [Lect. XVII. 

eloquence of Demosthenes protracted the contest for twenty long and 
tedious years ; but at length, in the fatal battle of Chseronea, all was lost, 
and thenceforth 

Greece, was living Greece no more. 

The death of Philip, 336 A.C., revived among the Greeks the hope of 
shaking off the Macedonian yoke. All Greece rose, and especially 
Athens, where Demosthenes, though weighed down with domestic grief, 
was the first joyfully to proclaim the tidings of Philip's death, to call 
upon the Greeks to unite their strength against Macedonia, and to form 
new connections in Asia. But the sudden appearance of Alexander be- 
fore Thebes damped their ardor and enthusiasm, and Athens sent an 
embassy to him to sue for peace. Demosthenes was chosen one of the 
ambassadors ; but his feelings against the Macedonians were so strong, 
that he preferred to expose himself to the ridicule of his enemies by re- 
turning, after having gone half way, than act the part of a suppliant 
before the youthful king. The destruction of Thebes, 335 A.C., put an 
en(J to all farther attempts of the Greeks for independence. Athens sub- 
mitted to the necessity, and sent Demades to the king as mediator. 
Alexander demanded that the leaders of the popular party, and among 
them Demosthenes, should be delivered up to him ; but he at length 
yielded to the entreaties of the Athenians, and did not persist in his 
demand. 

Alexander's departure for Asia left Greece in such a state, that a spark 
only from without was required to make it blaze forth throughout the 
land. That spark eventually came from Harpalus, who had been left by 
Alexander at Babylon, while the king proceeded to India. When Alex- 
ander had reached the easternmost point of his expedition, Harpalus, 
with the treasures entrusted to his care, fled from Babylon and came to 
Greece. In 325 A.C. he arrived at Athens; and purchased the pro- 
tection of the city by distributing his gold among the most influential 
demagogues. The reception of so open a rebel gave great offence to the 
Macedonians, and they immediately called upon the Athenians to deliver 
up the rebel and the money they had received of him, and to put to trial 
those who had accepted his bribes. Harpalus was allowed to escape, but 
the investigation concerning those who had been bribed by him was in- 
stituted, and Demosthenes was among those who were suspected of the 
crime. 

The accounts of Demosthenes' conduct during the presence of Har- 
palus at Athens are so confused, that it is almost impossible to arrive at 
any certain conclusion about it ; but Pausanias expressly acquits him of 
all participation in the offence. The power of the Macedonian party was 
at that time in the ascendant at Athens, and Demosthenes was sentenced 
to banishment. He was at once cast into prison, from which, however, he 
escaped, and retired to iEgina, looking daily, it is said, across the sea, 



323A.C] DEMOSTHENES. 453 

towards his native land. His exile did not, however, last long ; for, on 
the death of Alexander, which occurred in 323 A.C., Demosthenes was 
recalled from banishment, to aid, by his counsels, the rising struggle of 
the Grecian States that immediately followed. The struggle, however, 
proved ineffectual : Greece was re-subdued by Antipater ; and Demos- 
thenes was condemned to death. Previous to his sentence he retired to 
Calauria, and took refuge in the temple of Poseidon. When Archias, 
who pursued the fugitive everywhere, arrived, Demosthenes, who was 
summoned to follow him to Antipater, took poison, which he had for 
some time kept about his person, and died in the temple of Poseidon, 
322 A.C., and in the sixty-fourth year of his age. 

Thus terminated the career of a man who has, in all ages, been ranked 
amongst the greatest and noblest spirits of antiquity ; and his fame will 
remain undiminished as long as sterling sentiments and principles, and a 
consistent conduct through life, are regarded as the standard by which a 
man's worth is measured, and not simply the success — so often merely 
dependent upon circumstances — by which his exertions are crowned. 
The very calumnies which have been heaped upon Demosthenes by his 
enemies and detractors, more extravagantly than upon any other man — 
the coarse and complicated web of lies which was devised by iEschines, 
and in which he himself was caught, and the odious insinuations of Theo- 
pompus, the historian, which are credulously repeated by Plutarch — 
have only contributed to bring forth the political virtues of Demosthenes 
in a more striking and brilliant light. 

There are, it is true, some minor points in his life that, in consequence 
of the distorted accounts which have come down to us about them, will, 
perhaps, never be cleared up. Many of these are, however, beneath con- 
tempt ; such as that he took flight at the battle of Chgeronea, and that, 
notwithstanding a severe domestic calamity — having lost his daughter, by 
death, seven days before — he publicly rejoiced at Philip's death, and also 
that he shed tears on going into exile. To the first of these charges we 
would reply, though, in a soldier, this is no justification, that a thousand 
others fled with him ; to the second, that the act only shows the pre- 
dominance of his patriotic feelings over his personal and selfish ones ; and 
for the third act, if it be true, he deserves to be beloved and honored, 
rather than blamed. The charge of tergiversation, which is so frequently 
brought against him by JEschines, has never been substantiated by the 
least evidence ; and in his administration of public affairs he is perfectly 
spotless. 

As a statesman, Demosthenes' career received its greatest lustre from 
his powers as an orator — powers in which he was never, perhaps, equalled 
by any other orator of the world. Our own judgment on this point must 
necessarily be partial, as we can only read his orations ; but among his 
contemporaries there was scarcely one who could point out any definite 
fault in his oratory. By far the majority looked upon him as the great- 



454 ^ES CHINES. [Lect XVII. 

est orator of the time ; and it was only men of such over-refined and 
hypercritical tastes as Demetrius Phalereus who thought him either too 
plain and simple, or too harsh and strong; though some found these 
features more striking in reading his orations, while others were more 
impressed with them when they heard him speak. These peculiarities, 
however, so far from being faults, will appear, in fact, if we consider the 
temptations which natural deficiencies hold out to an incipient orator to 
pursue the opposite course, proofs of his extraordinary genius. The 
obstacles which his physical constitution threw in his way when he com- 
menced his career, were such, that one less courageous and persevering 
than Demosthenes would at once have been intimidated and entirely 
shrunk from the arduous career of a public orator. Those early difficul- 
ties with which he had to contend, doubtless, led him to bestow more 
care upon the composition of his orations than he would otherwise have 
given them, and produced, eventually, the impossibility of speaking extem- 
pore, at least the habit of never venturing upon it ; for he never spoke 
without preparation, and he sometimes refused to speak in the assembly, 
when called upon, merely because he was not prepared. 

It may be interesting to notice the causes of the extraordinary im- 
pression which the speeches of Demosthenes made upon the minds of his 
hearers. The first cause was, evidently, their pure and ethical character ; 
for every sentence in them exhibits him as the friend of his country, of 
virtue, truth, and public decency : and as the struggles in which he was 
eDgaged were right and just, he could, without scruple, unmask his oppo- 
nents, and wound them where they were vulnerable, though he never 
resorted to sycophantic artifices. The second cause was his intellectual 
superiority. By a wise arrangement of his subjects, and by the applica- 
tion of the strongest arguments in their proper places, he brought the subjects 
before his hearers in the clearest possible form ; any doubts that might be 
raised in advance he anticipated, and thus he proceeded calmly but irresisti- 
bly towards the end. The third and last cause was the magic force of his 
language, which being majestic and simple — rich, yet not bombastic — 
strange, and yet familiar — solemn, without being ornamented — grave, 
and yet pleasing — concise, and yet fluent — sweet, and yet impressive — 
carried away the minds of his hearers. That such orations should, not- 
withstanding these exalted qualities, sometimes have failed to produce 
the desired effect, was owing only to the spirit of the times. 

Sixty-five orations of Demosthenes are mentioned by the ancients, 
though only sixty-one, including the Letter of Philip, have come down to 
us under his name. Besides these orations, there are fifty-six JSxordia 
to public orations, and six letters also, which bear his name ; their 
genuineness, however, is very doubtful. 

iEschines, the great rival of Demosthenes, was born in Athens, 389 
A.C. He was the son of Tromes, who, according to Demosthenes, 



S89A.C.] ^ES CHINES. 455 

was not a free citizen of Athens, but had been a slave in the house of 
Elpias, a schoolmaster. After the return of the Athenian exiles under 
Thrasybulus, Tromes himself kept a small school, and iEschines, in his 
youth, assisted his father, and performed such services as were unworthy 
of a free Athenian youth. After having assisted his father for some 
time, he left the school, and being of a strong and athletic constitution, 
he engaged himself for a regular compensation to a gymnasia, to contend 
with other young men in their exercises. He next served the distinguished 
orator and statesman, Aristophon, as scribe, and subsequently performed 
the same office for Eubulus, a man of great influence with the democratic 
party, with whom he formed an intimate friendship, and to whose political 
principles he remained faithful to the end of his life. 

ZEschines next turned his attention to the stage as an actor; but 
being entirely unsuccessful in that calling, he resolved to enter the 
army. After several less important engagements in other parts of 
Greece, he greatly distinguished himself in the battle of Mantinea, which 
was fought 362 A.C. In 358 A.C., he took part in the expedition of 
the Athenians against Euboea, and fought in the battle of Tamynse with 
such bravery as to be praised by the generals on the spot ; and after the 
victory was gained, he was sent to carry the news of it to Athens. 
Temenides, who was sent with him, bore witness to his courage and 
bravery, and the Athenians honored him with a crown. 

Two years before this campaign — the last in which he took part — 
iEschines had come forward at Athens as a public speaker, and the 
military fame he had now acquired established his reputation. His 
former occupation as a scribe had rendered him familiar with the laws 
and constitution of Athens, and his acting on the stage had been a useful 
preparation for public speaking. During the early part of his public 
career he was, like all other Athenians, zealously engaged in directing 
the attention of his fellow citizens to the growing power of Philip, and 
exhorted them to check it before it became too late. 

In 347 A.C, ten commissioners, among whom were iEschines and 
Demosthenes, were sent from Athens to Philip to negotiate a treaty of 
peace. The artful and insinuating address of Philip completely beguiled 
the majority of these commissioners, iEschines with the rest ; and thence- 
forward he would think of nothing but peace with the king of Macedon 
This course necessarily placed him antagonistic to Demosthenes, and 
hence, during the remainder of the life of Philip, the two great orators 
were diametrically opposed to each other. The patriotism of Demos- 
thenes, through the whole of this struggle, was so universally acknowl- 
edged, that Ctesiphon at length proposed that the Athenians should 
reward him, for the services he had rendered to his country, with a 
golden crown in the theatre at the great Dionysia. .ZEschines availed 
himself of some informal technicality in the manner in which this reward 
was proposed to be given, to bring a public charge against Ctesiphon. 



456 HYPERIDES. [Lect. XVII. 

The speech in which he accused Ctesiphon, and which is still extant, is 
so skilfully managed, that, if he had succeeded, he would have totally 
destroyed all the political influence and authority of Demosthenes. The 
latter answered iEschines in his celebrated oration on the Crown ; and 
such was the power of his argument and brilliancy of his oratory, that 
even before the speech was closed, iEschines acknowledged himself con- 
quered, withdrew from the court, and quitted his country. 

Having thus gone into voluntary exile, iEschines took up his abode in 
Asia Minor, and for many years taught rhetoric in Ionia and Caria, 
anxiously awaiting the return of Alexander to Europe. When, however, 
in 324 A.C., the report of the conqueror's death reached him, he retired 
into Rhodes, where he established a school of eloquence, which subse- 
quently, as has been already observed, became very celebrated, and 
occupies a middle position between the grave manliness of the Attic 
orators, and the effeminate luxuriance of the so-called Asiatic school of 
oratory. On one occasion he read to his audience in Khodes his speech 
against Ctesiphon; and when some of his hearers expressed their astonish- 
ment that he should have been defeated, notwithstanding his brilliant 
oration, he replied, ' You would cease to be astonished, if you had heard 
Demosthenes.' iEschines died in Samos, 314 A.C., and in the seventy- 
fifth year of his age. 

Of all the orations of iEschines only three were published — the one 
against Timarchus, the one on the Embassy, and the one against Ctesi- 
phon. He was endowed by nature with extraordinary oratorical powers, 
and, as a public speaker, Demosthenes only was his superior. The facility 
and felicity of his diction, the boldness and vigor of his descriptions, 
carry away the reader now, as they must have carried away his audiences. 
The ancients, as Photius remarks, designated these three orations as the 
Graces, and the nine letters which were extant in the time of Photius, as 
the Muses. Besides the three orations, and the nine letters, just men- 
tioned, we have twelve other letters ascribed to iEschines, which were 
probably the work of some late sophists. 

Hyperides was the son of Grlaucippus, and was a native of Athens ; but 
the exact period of his birth has not been preserved, though it is sup- 
posed to have been about 396 A.C. He was a friend of Demosthenes, 
and with him and Lycurgus, he was at the head of the anti-Macedonian 
party. Throughout his public career he joined the patriots with the 
utmost determination, and remained faithful to them to the last, even 
through all the dangers and catastrophes by which Athens was weighed 
down successively, under Philip, Alexander, and Antipater. This stead- 
fast adherence to the good cause may be attributed to the influence which 
his friends Demosthenes and Lycurgus exerted over him, for he seems to 
have been naturally a person of vacillating character; and Plutarch 
states, that he sometimes gave way to his passions, which were not always 



585A.C] DEMADES. 457 

of the noblest kind. In philosophy he was the pupil of Plato, and Iso- 
crates trained and developed his oratorical powers. Of his life little is 
farther known; and after the battle of Crannon, 322 A.C., when all hopes 
of the liberty of his country had vanished, he fled to iEgina, whither he 
was pursued by the emissaries of Antipater, and put to death in the most 
cruel manner. 

Though Hyperides must have appeared before the public on many oc- 
casions, both in the courts of justice and in the assembly of the people, 
yet nothing of his orations have been preserved but a few brief fragments. 
Though his delivery is said to have been wanting in liveliness, yet his 
style and diction were pure Attic, and his oratory both graceful and pow- 
erful, thus observing a medium between the ease and elegance of Lysias, 
and the overwhelming power of Demosthenes. According to Cicero, he 
treated the subjects under discussion with great skill and ready wit ; and 
although he sometimes had the appearance of carelessness, yet the expo- 
sition of his subject, and his argumentation, were worthy of imitation. 
The elegance and gracefulness of his orations were, however, such as were 
calculated to produce a momentary, rather than a lasting and moral, im- 
pression. 

Demades was a native Athenian, but the time of his birth is not 
known. He was of very low origin, and in early life followed the pur- 
suit of a common rower ; but by his extraordinary talents, his demagogic 
artifices, and his treachery, he finally rose to a very prominent position at 
Athens. He used his influence, however, in such a manner, that Plu- 
tarch justly terms him the shipwreck or ruin of his country. He be- 
longed to the Macedonian party, and entertained a deadly hatred of 
Demosthenes, against whom he came forward as early as the time of the 
war against Olynthus, 349 A.C., and to whom he continued vindictively 
hostile to the end of his life. His vileness of character, eventually, how- 
ever, met a just retribution; for, being sent by the Athenians in 318 
A.C., ambassador to Antipater, that prince discovered his gross treachery 
even to himself, and immediately ordered that both he and his son who 
had accompanied him, should be put to death. 

Demades owed his influence in the public affairs of Athens to his natu- 
ral skill and his brilliant oratorical powers, which were the pure offspring 
of nature, and which he never cultivated according to any rules of art. 
He always spoke extempore, and with such irresistible force and abun- 
dance of wit, that he was a perfect match for even Demosthenes himself; 
and Quintilian does not hesitate to place him by the side of Pericles. 
As he left no written orations, however, we have at present no other 
means of judging of the character of his eloquence, than the reports of 
his contemporaries. 

Of Dinarchus and Demetrius Phalereus no extended notice is, in this 



458 DINARCHTJS. [Lect. XVII. 

connection, required. The former was a native of Corinth, but passed 
his youth chiefly at Athens. He studied philosophy under Theophras- 
tus, and as an orator became celebrated after the death of Demosthenes. 
Three of his orations still remain ; and by composing for others, he is 
said to have acquired very considerable wealth. The latter was more 
remarkable as a politician than as an orator, and, in the course of a very 
chequered life, filled many high and important stations.' 



ttiiutt ijje <Ktg|rh*tttjj, 

HISTORY. 

PHERECYDES — CADMUS — HECAT^EUS— ACUSILAUS— CHARON— XAN- 
THUS — HELL ANICUS— HERODOTUS— THUCYDIDES— XENOPHON— 
CTESIAS — THEOPOMPUS— POLYBIUS — DIODORUS SICULUS — DIO- 
NYSIUS HALIC ARNASSUS — PLUTARCH— ARRI AN— APPI AN— DION 
CASSIUS— ^ELIAN. 

IN the earlier ages of antiquity, the Greeks, in common "with most other 
ancient nations, possessed scarcely anything that might be called regu- 
lar historical records. The art of writing was not yet brought into that 
frequent and general use which is requisite for such purposes. Oral tra- 
ditions, visible monuments, and commemorative festivals, were the prin- 
cipal means used for transmitting a knowledge of important events and 
interesting facts from one age to another. The oral traditions were com- 
monly thrown into the form of verse or song ; and in this manner, poets 
became the first historians. Their poems, in the epic, the lyric, or the 
dramatic form, presented the story of the fabulous and heroic ages in the 
most attractive garb and were impressed upon the memory in early edu- 
cation : they were sung also at the festivals and the funeral celebrations 
of heroes, and afterwards, by means of written copies, extensively circu- 
lated. In later ages, when the use of writing became more common, and 
prose composition began to be cultivated, its first, and for some time, its 
principal application, was to historical narration. 

Pherecydes, of the island of Leros, and Cadmus and Hecatceus, of Mi- 
letus, all of whom flourished about 550 A.C., are uniformly named as the 
earliest writers of history in prose. It was at this period that truth and 
fable first began to be carefully distinguished from each other — the former 
being now selected as the proper material for prose and history, and the 
latter still left to the exclusive use of the poets. Afterwards writers 
began to record the history of their own times, and connect it with the 
traditionary accounts of former ages. As the art of writing was now 
more sedulously cultivated, and thought extended, the theory of historical 



460 HISTORY. [Lect. XVIII. 

composition began to be thoroughly investigated and fixed on philosophi- 
cal principles. 

Most of the early Grecian writers of history were natives of Asia 
Minor, or of the neighboring islands, and were called logograpliers. 
These authors, besides drawing their materials from traditionary accounts 
and the works of poets, consulted also all the monuments of antiquity ; 
such as, inscriptions, altars, statues, and edifices erected or consecrated in 
connection with particular events. The logographies were the first fruit 
of this spirit of investigation : they were a kind of writing holding an 
intermediate place between epic poetry and veritable history. Of them, 
no entire specimen remains ; but we have many fragments for which we 
are indebted to quotations made by historians and writers on mythology 
in later periods, by the scholiasts, and by some of the Christian Fathers. 
The works of the three prose writers just named belonged to this class ; 
and Pliny informs us that Cadmus was the most ancient author of this 
kind. Of Acusilaus of Argos, Charon of Lampsacus, Xanthus of Sar- 
dis, Hettanicus of Mitylene, there are also very considerable fragments 
still extant. These writers are, however, scarcely entitled to the name 
of historians. 

Herodotus was the earliest Greek author to give a finished and con- 
nected form to the narration of interesting events, and was, therefore, by 
Cicero, with much justice, stjded the father of history. He was soon fol- 
lowed, however, by Thucydides and Xenophon — two writers of equal g# 
nius with himself. Of all the Greek historians these three are the most 
eminent, and their works are among the most valuable remains of Greek 
prose composition. They all belong to the most brilliant period of Gre- 
cian literature ; they wrote chiefly upon Grecian affairs, and are the prin- 
cipal source of our knowledge respecting the Grecian States, in the period 
to which they relate. Several other historians soon followed these eminent 
writers ; but they are known to us only by a few fragments of their works, 
or by the judgment passed upon them by ancient writers. The most cel- 
ebrated of these were Ctesias, a contemporary of Xenophon, and TJieo- 
pompus, who lived a short time after. We have a few brief fragments 
also, of Philistus of Syracuse, and Ephorus of Cumae. 

Besides these general historians, it may be well here to notice a class 
of writers who confined their attention entirely to the history and an- 
tiquity of Athens. Their works are usually cited under the common 
name of Treatises on Attica. As the materials for these works were 
drawn, not merely from loose traditions, but from various authentic 
sources, their loss is to be deeply regretted, although they were, no doubt, 
abundantly charged with fable, and full of pictures of imagination. Of 
this class of writers, De?no, Androtio?i, Philocorus, and Ister are the 
most distinguished. 

Of the historians who flourished after the death of Alexander the 
Great, and previous to the final subjection of Greece by the Romans, Fo- 



200A.C] HISTORY. 461 

lybius, of Megalopolis, was the principal. Polybius published several 
historical works, which unfortunately are now all lost, with the exception 
of a part of his Universal History. This work, in its kind, was without 
a rival. In style and eloquence it may be greatly inferior to the histori- 
cal works of the great masters of the preceding era; but it was the first 
successful attempt to exhibit, in a philosophical manner, the principles 
of morals and politics as developed in the changes of human society. 
Polybius may, therefore, be justly ranked among the most distinguished 
of ancient historians. In the same age there were numerous other wri- 
ters who composed historical performances, relating chiefly to the life and 
exploits of Alexander, although often including much other matter. 
Scarcely anything from their pens has, however, been preserved. Of 
these writers, Hieronymus, Calisthenes, Diodotus, JYearchus, and Nym- 
phis were the most important. 

The same age produced other historical writers upon whom we must 
here bestow a passing notice. Of these, Berosus, the Chaldean priest, 
Abydenus, his disciple, and Manetho, of Diospolis in Egypt, are the most 
prominent. We may also mention, in this connection, Timceus of Tau- 
romenium, who, after being banished from Sicily, resided for a long time 
at Athens, and is quoted by Cicero as a model of the Asiatic style of 
eloquence. Aratus of Sicyon, wh^m we have already particularly no- 
ticed among the Grecian poets, Phylarchus, his contemporary, and Pole- 
mo Periegetes belong also to this period. The most important fragments 
that remain of the writings of all these authors are those that belong to 
Berosus and Manetho. 

Under Roman supremacy in Greece a great number of historians were 
produced, but they were all of secondary rank. Of those who wrote be- 
fore the Christian era, the two most important were Diodorus Siculus 
and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. These two writers flourished almost 
immediately before the new era, and a very considerable part of their 
works are still extant. There were several other authors of the same 
age, whose works are now lost ; such as Castor of Rhodes, a contem- 
porary of Julius Caesar, Theophantes of Mitylene, the friend and biogra- 
pher of Pompey the Great, Timagenes of Alexandria, selected by Augus- 
tus as his historiographer, but discarded for certain imprudent sallies of 
wit, Posidonius the stoic, and Juba, a son of the king of Numidia, who 
was taken captive by Julius Caesar, and educated at Rome. "We may, 
also, here mention Nicolaus of Damascus, and Memnon of Heraclea, 
both of whom lived in the time of Augustus, and of whose writings some 
considerable fragments still remain. 

Of the historians who immediately followed the commencement of the 
Christian era, one of the most interesting and important was the Jewish 
writer, Flavins Josephus. His history of the destruction of Jerusalem, 
of which he was an eye-witness, is 'full of tragic interest, and is, on many 
other accounts, a work of great value. It was originally written in the 



462 HISTORY. [Lect. XVIII. 

Hebrew language, and was afterwards translated by himself into the 
Greek. Plutarch also, who flourished in the first Christian century, 
must be included among the Greek historical writers, not only because 
his Lives partake so much* of an historical character, but because he 
wrote several other works upon historical topics. After Plutarch, the 
most important historical writers were Arrian, Appian, Dion Cassius, 
and Herodian. JElian, also, usually occupies a place among the his- 
torians, but it must be confessed that he holds a very low rank. The 
historical work of Polycenus entitles him, also, to a passing notice in 
this place, and in this connection. 

To some other historical writers of the period of which we are now 
speaking, it may be proper simply to allude. Herennius Philo of Biblus, 
in the second century, is said to have written several historical works, 
and also to have translated into the Greek language from the Phoenician, 
the Antiquities of Sanconiathon. Eupi'axides lived in the time of the 
emperor Nero, and was the author of the historical work usually ascribed 
to Dictys Cretensis. Phlegon, of Tralles in Lydia, was the author 
of numerous historical works, among which was a sort of universal 
chronology ; most of which is now, however, unfortunately lost. In a 
fragment of this curious performance is mentioned an eclipse of the sun 
in the eighteenth year of the reign of the emperor Tiberius, which has 
been supposed, by some writers, to refer to the darkness that attended 
the crucifixion of Christ. 

In the long period that extended from the age of Constantine, before 
whose era all the historians hitherto mentioned flourished, to the taking 
of the city of Constantinople by the Turks, the first historian that we 
meet with is JEusebius, the celebrated bishop of Caesarea, and one of the 
most distinguished men of the age. The only work of this author which 
strictly belongs to classical literature, is his Chronicle, or Universal His 
tory — a work of rare, and even extraordinary merit. After Eusebius we 
have a long list of historical writers ; but of this vast number Zosimus 
and Procopius are the only two names of much importance, until we 
come down to the mass of writers still less celebrated, and usually grouped 
together under the name of the Byzantine historians. This series of 
authors, beginning with the seventh century, extends to the final over- 
throw of Constantinople. ' They have,' in the language of Gibbon, 'little 
merit, except that they are the only sources whence we can derive the 
history of the middle ages. A few among them exhibit a degree of 
purity and elegance in style ; but most of their works are destitute of 
taste and of method, and degraded by superstition and abject flattery.' 

These Byzantine writers have usually been divided into four classes. 
The first class includes Zonaras, Nicetas Acominatus, Nicephorus Gre- 
goras, and Laonicus Chalcondylas, and form what, properly speaking, is 
termed the Body of Byzantine historians. Taken together, they give a 
complete history of the period from Constantine to the capture of Con- 



550A.C.] PHEREOYDES. 463 

stantinople by the Turks. The second class includes the writers that 
have been termed Chroniclers, and who attempted to give general his- 
tories, or annals extending from the beginning of the world to their own 
times. Scholl mentions fifteen or sixteen names belonging to this class. 
The third class consists of such writers as confined themselves to the 
history of a short period, or particular event, or to certain individuals : 
these last should rather be called biographers than historians. More 
than twenty names are given in this class, of whom Agathias was one of 
the most eminent. The fourth class is composed of authors who occupied 
themselves rather with antiquities and statistics than with history. Of 
the ten or twelve included in this number, Constantiiic Porphyrogenitus 
was the most eminent. Lydus, whose treatise on the Roman magistrates, 
discovered in 1784, is considered by Niebuhr as a very valuable source 
of information, was also of this class. 

Biography, we may remark, as a department of composition, was 
almost entirely overlooked by the early Greeks ; but between the age of 
Augustus and that of Constantine, it received more attention. The 
Lives of Plutarch, already alluded to, are the most valuable productions 
of this kind in Grecian literature. In the third century we find two 
biographical works, the Lives of Diogenes Laertius, and the Lives of 
Philostratus, both of which are important sources of information respect- 
ing the ancient philosophers. The Lives of Moses and the Patriarchs, 
by Philo, the Jew, of Alexandria ; and likewise the biographical work of 
Porphyry, may also be mentioned in this connection. After the age of 
Constantine, we have the Lives of Eunapius, and the works of a large 
number of the Byzantine writers, one class of them being, as we have 
just remarked, emphatically denominated biographers. 

From these general remarks on the origin and progress of Grecian his- 
torical composition, we pass to a more particular notice of some of the 
most eminent of the Grecian historians. 

Pherecydes was a native of the little island of Leros ; but having 
early removed to Athens, and thenceforth resided in that city, he is fre- 
quently called an Athenian. The time of his birth is uncertain, but it is 
evident that he lived during the Persian war. 

The writings of Pherecydes comprehend a great portion of the myth- 
ical traditions ; and, of the ancient times of Athens, he gave, in a separate 
work, a copious account. He was extensively consulted by the later 
mythographers, and his extensive fragments must still serve as the basis 
of many mythological inquiries. By following a genealogical line, he 
was led from Philseus, the son of Ajax, down to Miltiades, the founder 
of the sovereignty in the Chersonesus ; and this afforded him an oppor- 
tunity of describing the campaign of Darius against the Scythians, con- 
cerning which a very valuable fragment of his history still remains. 



464 HECATAEUS. [Leot. XVIH. 

Cadmus, probably the earliest of the Greek historians or logographers, 
was a native of Miletus, in Asia Minor, and flourished about 540 A.C. ; 
but of the history of his life nothing farther 1 is, with any degree of cer- 
tainty, known. 

Cadmus was the author of a history of the foundation of Miletus ; 
and extending the work through four books, he embraced in it the whole 
history of Ionia. The subject of this work lay back in the dim period 
of uncertain knowledge, from which only a few oral traditions of an his- 
torical kind, but intimately connected with mythical notions, had been 
preserved. The genuine work of Cadmus appears to have been lost at a 
very early period ; for Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, expressly informs us, 
that the work known in his time, and passing under the name of Cadmus, 
was universally regarded, among the well-informed, as a forgery. We 
have no means, therefore, of judging of this author's merits as a 
writer. 

Hecataeus was also a native of Miletus, and was one of the most dis- 
tinguished of the early Greek historians and geographers. He was the 
son of Hegesander, and belonged to a very ancient and illustrious family. 
The time of his birth is unknown, though Larcher and others think that 
he must have been born about 550 A.C, as he took a very active part in 
the Ionian Revolt, which occurred in 503 A.C. As Hecataeus, according 
to Suidas, survived the Persian war a few years, he probably died about 
476 A.C, shortly after the battles of Plataea and Mycale. 

At the time of the Ionian revolt, Hecataeus was a man of very great 
consideration ; and in the council of Aristagoras, in reference to that sub- 
ject, he boldly dissuaded the undertaking, assigning as his reason for so 
doing that the various nations, subject to the will of Darius, and his 
numerous warlike forces, rendered his power irresistible. When, how- 
ever, he found they were determined to revolt, he advised them to en- 
deavor, above all things, to maintain the supremacy at sea by a large 
fleet ; and for the purpose of providing such fleet, to take the treasures 
from the temple of Branchidae. This advice certainly shows that He- 
cataeus was a prudent and sagacious man, and well understood the true 
situation of all things relating to the approaching contest. 

Instead of devoting himself, as his contemporary historians did, to the 
primitive history of his own country, Hecataeus directed his attention to 
passing events, and to the nature of the countries and kingdoms with 
which Greece began to entertain intimate relations. He had, like Herod- 
otus, travelled much, and had devoted particular attention to the affairs 
of Egypt. It is true that Herodotus often corrects his statements ; but 
by so doing he recognizes Hecataeus as the most important of his prede- 
cessors. Hecataeus perpetuated the results of his geographical and eth- 
nographical researches in a work entitled Travels round the Earth, by 
which a description of the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, and of 



504A.C.] CHARON. 465 

southern Asia, as far as India, was understood. The author began with 
Greece, proceeding in a book, entitled Europe to the west, and in an- 
other, entitled Asia to the east. Hecataeus also improved and com- 
pleted the map of the earth, sketched by Anaximander ; and in all prob- 
ability this was the same map which Aristagoras, of Miletus, brought 
to Sparta before the Ionian revolt, and upon which he pointed out to 
the king of Sparta the countries, the rivers, and principal cities of the 
East. 

Besides this important work, another is ascribed to Hecataeus, and 
which is sometimes called Histories, and sometimes Genealogies ; and of 
which four books are cited. Into this work Hecataeus admitted many 
of the genealogical legends of the Greeks ; and, notwithstanding his 
contempt for old fables, he laid great stress upon genealogies ascending to 
the mythological period : thus he made a pedigree for himself, in which 
his sixteenth ancestor was a god. Genealogies afforded opportunities for 
introducing accounts of different periods ; and Hecataeus certainly nar- 
rated many historical events in this work, although he did not write a 
connected history of the period comprised in it. 

Hecataeus wrote in the pure Ionic dialect, in a style of great sim- 
plicity ; and he is sometimes extremely vivid and animated in his de- 
scriptions. 

Acusilaus, a contemporary of Hecataeus, was the son of Scabras, and 
a native of Argos. He is said by Suidas to have written his Genealo- 
gies from bronze tablets, which his father dug up in his own house. 

Although a Dorian by descent, Acusilaus wrote in the Ionic dialect, 
because the Ionians were the founders of the historical style — a practice 
universally followed in Greek literature. He confined his attention en- 
tirely to the mythical period ; and his object appears to have been to collect 
into a short and connected narrative, all the events, from the formation of 
Chaos to the end of the Trojan war. It was said of him that he trans- 
lated Hesiod into prose — an expression which serves to characterize his 
work. He appears, however, to have related many legends differently 
from Hesiod, and to have adopted the tone of the Orphic theologies of 
his own time. He wrote nothing which can properly be called history, 
thong* three books of his logography are quoted by the ancients. 

Charon was a native of Lampsacus, and was born about 504 A.C. 
He continued the researches of Hecataeus into eastern ethnography, 
though little else is known of his history. He wrote separate works, as 
was the usual custom of these early historians, upon Persia, Libya, and 
Ethiopia. He also subjoined the history of his own time, and he pre- 
ceded Herodotus in narrating the events of the Persian war, though 
Herodotus nowhere mentions his name, or makes any allusion to him. 
From the fragments of his writings that remain, it is manifest that his 

30 



466 HELLANICUS. [Lect. XVIII. 

relation to Herodotus was that of a dry chronicler to an historian, under 
whose hands everything acquires life and character. Charon also wrote a 
chronicle of his own country, as several other of the early historians did ; 
and from this circumstance they were called chorographers. Probably 
most of the ancient historians, whose names are enumerated by Diony- 
sius of Halicarnassus, belonged to this class. 

Xanthus was a native of Lydia, and was born at Sardis about 500 
A.C. His father, Candaules, early sent him into Ionian Greece, where 
he remained until he had completed his education. 

The work of Xanthus upon Lydia, written in the Ionian dialect, bears, 
in the few fragments which remain, the stamp of great excellence. 
Some valuable remarks upon the nature of the earth's surface in Asia 
Minor, which pointed partly to volcanic agency, and partly to the exten- 
sion of the sea ; and precise accounts of the distinctions between the 
Lydian races are cited from it by Strabo and Dionysius. The passages 
quoted by these writers bear unquestionable marks of genuineness ; in 
later times, however, some spurious works were attributed to Xanthus. 
Of these spurious works, a work upon magic, and healing, at the same 
time, of the religion and worship of Zoroaster, was the principal. 

Hellanicus, the most eminent of the Greek logographers, was the son 
of Andromenes, and was born at Mytilene, in the island of Lesbos, about 
496 A.C. At the commencement of the Peloponnesian war he was sixty- 
five years old, and his death, according to Lucian, occurred in 411 A.C, 
when he had reached nearly the age of eighty-six. 

The character of Hellanicus, as a mythographer and historian, is es- 
sentially different from that of the early chroniclers whom we have just 
noticed. He has far more the character of a learned compiler, whose ob- 
ject is, not merely to note down events, but to arrange his materials in 
their proper order, and to correct the errors of others. Besides a num- 
ber of writings upon particular legends and local fables, he composed a 
work entitled, The Priestesses of Hera of Argos ; in which the women 
who had filled this priesthood were enumerated, though on doubtful 
authority, up to a very remote period ; and various striking events of the 
heroic age were arranged in chronological order, according to this series. 
Hellanicus could, however, hardly have been the first who ventured to 
make a list of this kind, and to dress it up with chronological dates. 
Before his time the priests and temple-attendants at Argos had, perhaps, 
employed their idle hours in compiling a series of the priestesses of Hera, 
and in explaining it by monuments supposed to be of great antiquity. 
The Carneonicce, of Hellanicus was a much more important work than 
the Priestesses, as it contained a list of the victors in the musical and 
poetical contests of the Carnea at Sparta from 676 A.C, down to the 



484A.C] HERODOTUS. 467 

author's own age. This work may, therefore, be regarded as one of the 
first attempts at literary history. 

The writings of Hellanicus contain a vast mass of matter ; since, be- 
sides the works already mentioned, he wrote accounts of Phoenicia, Persia, 
and Egypt, and also a description of a journey to the renowned oracle 
of Jupiter Ammon in the desert of Libya ; though we should, perhaps, 
remark, that the genuineness of this last work has been doubted. He 
also descended to the history of his own time, and described some of the 
events between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars ; but very briefly, 
and, as Thucydides asserts, without chronological, accuracy. 

All the productions of Hellanicus are now lost, with the exception of a 
considerable number of fragments. Although he belongs, strictly speak- 
ing, to the logographers, still he holds a much higher rank among the 
early Greek historians than any other of those who are designated by the 
name of logographers. He properly forms the transition point from that 
class of writers to the real historians ; for, he not only treated of the 
mythical ages, but, in several instances, he carried history down to his 
own times. But, as far as the form of history is concerned, he had not 
emancipated himself from the custom and practice of other logographers; 
for, like them, he treated history from local points of view, and divided 
it into such portions as might be related in the form of genealogies. 
Hence he wrote local histories and traditions ; and this circumstance, to- 
gether with the many differences in his statements from those of Herodo- 
tus, renders it highly probable that, though these two writers were con- 
temporaries, yet they could have had no intercourse respecting each 
other's historical plans. 

The six historians whom we have just noticed were the worthy precur- 
sors of the three great historical writers, Herodotus, Thucydides, and 
Xenophon, who immediately succeeded them ; and yet they were as far 
below them in point of merit, as the dramatic poets who originated the 
drama, were below iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. 

Herodotus, the father of what may be properly called history, was the 
son of Lyxes, and was born at Halicarnassus, in Caria, 484 A.C. His 
family was one of the most distinguished of the Doric colony of Caria, 
and hence they became involved in the civil commotions of the country. 
Caria was at that time governed by Artemisia, the princess who fought 
so bravely for the Persians in the battle of Salamis, that Xerxes, while 
witnessing her exploits, declared that she was the only man among many 
women. Lygdamis, the grandson, and successor of Artemisia in the 
government of Caria, was hostile to the family of Herodotus ; and he, 
accordingly, put Panyasis, the epic poet, and probably the maternal uncle 
of Herodotus, to death, and compelled Herodotus himself to leave the 
country. This event occurred in 452 A.C, when the future historian was 
iu the thirty- third year of his age. ^ 



168 HERODOTUS. [Lect. XVIIL 

Thus forced to leave his native country, Herodotus took refuge in the 
island of Samos, probably with some relative or kinsman who resided 
there ; and to this Ionian island he eventually became so attached, that 
thenceforth it was regarded by him as a second home. In many pas- 
sages of his history he exhibits the most minute acquaintance with the 
island and its inhabitants, and seems to take great pleasure in inci- 
dentally mentioning the part it played in events of importance. In 
Samos, Herodotus acquired his familiarity with the Ionic dialect, and 
imbibed the Ionian spirit which pervades his history. 

After having resided some time in Samos, Herodotus returned to Caria 
for the purpose of undertaking to -deliver his native country from the yoke 
of Lygdamis. In this attempt he was entirely successful ; but the con- 
test between the nobles and commons which immediately followed, placed 
such obstacles in the way of his plans and arrangements for securing the 
permanent happiness of Caria, and particularly of its capital city, Hali- 
carnassus, that Herodotus now left his native country forever. 

Having returned to Samos, Herodotus, feeling, perhaps, unsettled in 
regard to his future course of life, finally resolved to travel abroad for 
the purpose of familiarizing himself with the history of other countries 
besides his own. He did not, however, visit those countries from the 
accidents of commercial business, or political missions, but from the pure 
spirit of inquiry ; and for that early age his travels were certainly very 
extensive and important. He visited Egypt, and penetrated as far up 
into the country as to Elephantine ; Libya, as far, at least, as the vicinity 
of Cyrene ; Phoenicia, Babylon, and probably Persia — the Greek states 
on the Cimmerian Bosphorus ; the contiguous country of the Scythians, 
as well as Colchis : besides which he had resided in several States of 
Greece, and had visited many temples, even- the remote one of Dodona. 
The circumstance of his being a Carian, and consequently a subject of 
the king of Persia, must have greatly assisted him in these travels — an 
Athenian, or a Greek of any of the States which were in open revolt 
against Persia, would be treated as an enemy, and sold into slavery. 
From this consideration it has been inferred that the travels of Herod- 
otus, at least those to Egypt and Asia, were performed in his youth, 
and while he still resided at Halicarnassus. 

Herodotus did not, of course, perform these long journeys, and make 
these extensive inquiries, as a matter of mere idle curiosity, but with the 
view of imparting their result to his countrymen. It is rather doubtful, 
however, whether he had, at that time, formed the plan of connecting 
his information concerning Asia and Greece with the history of the Per- 
sian war, and of uniting the whole into one great work. When we con- 
sider that an intricate and extensive plan of this sort had hitherto been 
unknown in the historical writings of the Greeks, it can hardly be 
doubted that the idea occurred to him at an advanced stage of his in- 
quiries, andthat in his earlier years he had not raised his mind above 



484A.C] HERODOTUS. 469 

the conception of such works as those of Charon, Hellanicus, and others 
of his predecessors and contemporaries. Even at a later period of his 
life, when he was engaged in composing his great work, he is said to 
have contemplated writing a separate book upon Assyria ; and some sup- 
pose that this work was not only composed, but was actually in existence 
down as late as the time of Aristotle. In fact, Herodotus might have 
made separate books out of the accounts of Egypt, Persia, Scythia, given 
in his history ; and, had he been contented to tread in the footsteps of 
the logographers who preceded him, he would doubtless have done so. 

Herodotus, having completed his travels abroad, returned into his 
native country, and finally passed over into Lower Italy, settling quietly 
down at Thurium, where, it is generally supposed he, in the leisure and 
quiet of his latter years, composed his great work. Hence he is, in re- 
ference to the composition of his history, frequently called by the ancients 
a Thurian. From this statement it is not to be inferred that we sup- 
pose Herodotus to have been amongst the first settlers of Thurium ; for, 
doubtless, the numbers of the original colonists received subsequently 
many additions. It is entirely certain that Herodotus did not go to 
« Thurium till after the beginning of the Peloponnesian war; for, at the 
beginning of that war he must have been at Athens. As evidence of 
this, we have only to remark that he describes a sacred offering, which 
was on the Acropolis of Athens, by its position with regard to the 
Propylaea ; but the Propylsea was not finished till the year the Pe- 
loponnesian war began. Herodotus, likewise, evidently appears to adopt 
those views of the relations between the Greek States, which were 
diffused in Athens by the statesmen of the party of Pericles ; and he 
gives it as his opinion that Athens did not deserve, after her great ex- 
ploits in the Persian war, to be so envied and blamed by the rest of the 
Greeks, which we all know was eminently the case just at the time of the 
beginning of the Peloponnesian war. The time of Herodotus' death is 
uncertain ; but it is generally supposed that he lived to an advanced age. 

Herodotus having, as we have remarked, completed his history at 
Thurium, it is stated that he returned to Greece, and recited the work at 
different public Grecian festivals. This statement is in itself perfectly 
credible, as the Greeks of this period, when they had finished a com- 
position with care, and had given it an attractive form, depended more 
upon oral delivery than upon solitary reading. Thucydides, blaming the 
historians who preceded him, describes them as courting the transient 
applause of an audience, instead of depending upon the intrinsic merit of 
their work. The ancient chronologists have also preserved the exact 
date of a recitation, which took place at the great Panathenaea at Athens, 
in 446 A.C., and when Herodotus was thirty-eight years of age. The 
collections of Athenian decrees, also, contained a decree proposed by 
Anytus, from which it appeared that Herodotus received a reward of ten 
talents from the public treasury. 



470 HERODOTUS. [Lect. XVIII. 

There is less authority, however, for the story about Herodotus reciting 
his history at the Olympic games, and least authority of all for the well- 
known anecdote, that Thucydides, a boy of sixteen, was present, and that 
he shed tears copiously, drawn forth by his own intense desire for know- 
ledge, and his deep interest in the narrative. To say nothing of the many 
intrinsic improbabilities of this story — Thucydides being Herodotus' junior 
by only thirteen years — so many anecdotes were invented by the ancients, 
in order to bring eminent men of the same pursuits into connection with 
each other, that it is impossible to give any faith to it, without the testi- 
mony of more trustworthy witnesses than any we have. 

We are not to suppose, however, that the public readings of Herodotus, 
such as those at the Panathenaeic festival, embraced his whole work : 
they were rather confined to detached portions of his subject, which he 
afterwards introduced into his history ; such as the history and descrip- 
tion of Egypt, or the accounts concerning Persia. Indeed, his great 
work could not have been completed till the commencement of the 
Peloponnesian war ; for the four last books of it are so full of references 
and allusions to events which occurred during the earlier parts of that 
war, that he appears to have been diligently occupied with the composi- 
tion or final revision of it "at that time. The probability, therefore, is, 
that Herodotus did not live to the second period of the Peloponnesian 
war, and that he was occupied with his work till his death ; for the closing 
parts seem to have been left by him in an unfinished state. 

The plan of the work of Herodotus is founded upon the idea of an 
ancient enmity between the Greeks and the nations of Asia. The learned 
of the East considered the insults offered to Io, Medea, and Helen, and 
the wars which grew out of those events, as single acts of this great con- 
flict ; and their main object was to determine which of the two parties 
had first resorted to violence. Herodotus, however, soon drops these 
legendary stories, and turns his attention to Croesus, king of Lydia — a 
prince whom he knew to have been the aggressor in his war against the 
Greeks. He then proceeds to give a detailed account of the enterprises 
of Croesus, and the other events of his life, into all of which are inter- 
woven as episodes, not only the early history of the Lydian kings, and of 
their conflicts with the Greeks, but also important passages in the history 
of Sparta and Athens. 

In this manner Herodotus, in describing the first subjugation of the 
Greeks by an Asiatic power, at the same time points out the origin and 
progress of these States, by which the Greeks were to be liberated. 
Meanwhile the attack upon Sardis, by Cyrus, brings the Persian power 
on the stage in the place of the lydians, and the narrative then proceeds 
to explain the rise of the Persian from the Median kingdom, and to 
describe its increase by the subjugation of the nations of Asia Minor and 
the Babylonians. Whenever the Persians come in contact with other 
nations, an account, more or less detailed, of their history and peculiar 



484A.C] HERODOTUS. 471 

usages were given. Herodotus evidently strives to enlarge his plan by 
episodes : it is manifestly his object to combine with the history of the 
conflict between the East and the West, a vivid picture of the contending 
nations. Thus, to the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, he annexes a 
description of the country, the people, and their history, the copiousness 
of which was caused by his fondness for Egypt, on account of its early 
civilization, and the stability of its peculiar institutions and usages. The 
history of Cambyses, of the false Smerdis, and Darius, is continued in 
the same detailed manner ; and an account is given of the power of 
Samos, under Polycrates, and of his tragical end, by which the Persian 
power began to extend to the islands between Asia and Europe. The 
Scythian expedition, the Ionian revolt, the expedition against Eretria 
and Athens, with the rapid rise and power of the young republic of 
Athens, are all described in the same vivid and rapid manner ; and 
although the work seems to be unfinished, still it closes with a senti- 
ment which cannot have been placed casually at the end — c It is not 
always the richest and most fertile country which produces the most 
valiant men.' 

By pursuing this course Herodotus has given to his history character- 
istic unity ; for, notwithstanding the extent "of his subject, which compre- 
hends nearly all the nations of the world at that time known, the narra- 
tive is constantly advancing. His work has also an epic character ; not 
only from the equable and uninterrupted flow of the narrative, but also 
from certain pervading ideas, which gave an uniform tone to the whole. 
The principal of these is the idea of a fixed destiny, of a wise arrange- 
ment of the world, which has prescribed to every being his path ; and 
which allots ruin and destruction, not only to crime and violence, but to 
excessive power and riches, and the over-weening pride which is their 
companion. 

As Herodotus thus saw the working of a divine agency in all human 
events, and considered the exhibition of it as the. main object of his 
history, his aim was entirely different from that of an historian who re- 
gards the events of life merely with reference to man. Herodotus was, 
in reality, a theologian and a poet, as well as an historian. The individ- 
ual parts of his work are treated entirely in this spirit. His aim was not 
to give the results of common experience in human life ; for his mind 
turned mainly to the extraordinary and the marvellous. In this respect 
his work bears an uniform color. The great events which he relates — 
the gigantic enterprises of princes, the unexpected turns of fortune and 
other marvellous occurrences — harmonize with the accounts of the aston- 
ishing buildings and other works of the East, of the multifarious and 
often singular manners of the different nations, the surprising phenomena 
of nature, and the rare productions and animals of the remote regions of 
the world. In thus presenting a picture of strange and astonishing 
things to his mobile and curious countrymen, Herodotus was guided by 



472 HERODOTUS. [Lect. XVIIL 

the strictest truth and integrity whenever the things related fell within the 
range of his own observation ; but as, in many cases, he was under the 
necessity of depending upon information received from others, we may 
adopt his own remark with regard to such statements : ' I must say what 
has been told to me ; but I need not, therefore, believe all ; and this re- 
mark applies to my whole work.' 

Herodotus must have completely familiarized himself with the manners 
and modes of thought of the Oriental nations. The character of his 
mind, and his style of composition, also resemble the Oriental type more 
than those of any other Greek author ; and, accordingly, his thoughts and 
expressions often remind us of the writings of the Old Testament. It 
cannot, indeed, be denied that he has sometimes attributed to the eastern 
princes ideas which were essentially Greek ; such as making the seven 
grandees of the Persians deliberate upon the respective advantages of 
monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. But, on the whole, Herodotus, 
seizes the character of an Oriental monarch, like Xerxes, with striking 
truth ; and transports us into the very midst of the satellites of a Per- 
sian despot. 

After all, however, no dissertation upon historical researches or the 
style of Herodotus, can convey any idea of the impression made by read- 
ing his work. To those who have read it, all description would be su- 
perfluous. It is like hearing a person speak who has seen and lived 
through an infinite variety of the most remarkable events ; and whose 
greatest delight consists in recalling the images of the past, and perpetu- 
ating the remembrance of them. He had eager and unwearied listeners, 
who were not impatient to arrive at the end of his narration ; and he 
could therefore complete every separate portion of the history, as if it 
were an independent narrative. He always knew that he had in store 
other more attractive and striking events; yet, as he dwelt with equal 
pleasure on everything that he had either seen or heard, he never hurried 
his course. In this manner, the stream of his Ionic language flows on 
with a charming facility. 

The character of his style, as is natural in mere narration, is diffuse 
and easy, with many phrases for the purpose of introducing, recapitulat- 
ing, or repeating a subject. These phrases are characteristical of oral 
discourse, which requires such contrivances, in order to prevent the 
speaker, or the hearer, from losing the thread of the story. In this, as in 
other respects, the language of Herodotus closely approximates to oral 
narration — of all varieties of prose, it is the farthest removed from a 
written style. Long sentences, formed of several clauses, are, for the 
most part, confined to speeches, where reasons and objections are com- 
pared, conditions stated, and their consequences developed. But it must 
be confessed that where the logical connection of different propositions 
is to be expressed, Herodotus generally shows a want of skill, and pro 
duces no distinct conception of the mutual relations of the several mem- 



4T1A.C] THUCYDIDES. 473 

bers of the argument. But with all these defects, his style must be con- 
sidered as the perfection of the unperiodic style — the only style employed 
by his predecessors, the logographers. The tone of the Ionic dialect — 
which Herodotus, although by birth a Dorian, adopted from the histo- 
rians who preceded him — conspires, with the various other elements that 
we have noticed, to render his work as harmonious and as nearly perfect 
in its kind, as any human production can be. Herodotus brings the his- 
tory of Greece down to the battle of Mycale. 

Thucydides, the son of Olorus was a native of Athens, and was born 
471 A.C. His family were of Thracian origin, and connected with the 
Miltiades who first established a principality in the Thracian Chersonese. 
Noble in descent and splendid in genius ; and surrounded by all the ad- 
vantages of education that the age afforded — with Aristagoras for his 
instructer in philosophy, and Antiphon, in oratory — a most brilliant 
career invited Thucydides onward, in whatever path he chose to move. 
Whether he ever entered into political life or not, is uncertain ; but that 
he was well qualified to shine as an orator, is abundantly evident from 
the various orations interspersed throughout his history. 

In 423 A.C, the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides 
obtained the command of a small fleet, and was ordered to the coast of 
Thrace. While he lay off the island of Thasos, Brasidas, the Spartan 
general, marched against the city of Amphipolis, on the river Strymon. 
He feared even the small fleet commanded by Thucydides, because he 
knew that the admiral possessed gold mines in the adjacent district of 
Thrace, had great influence with the principal inhabitants of the coun- 
try, and would therefore find no difficulty in getting together a body of 
native troops to reinforce the garrison of Amphipolis. Accordingly, 
Brasidas granted the Amphipolitans a better capitulation than they ex- 
pected, in order to gain possession of the place without delay ; and Thucy- 
dides having come too late to raise the siege, was obliged to content him- 
self with the defense of Eion, a fortified city near the coast. 

The Athenians, who were always in the habit of judging their generals 
and statesmen according to the success of their plans, condemned Thucy- 
dides for neglect of duty ; and he was consequently compelled to go into 
exile, in which state he continued for twenty years, living the greater part 
of the time in the vicinity of his gold-mines in Thrace. He was not per- 
mitted to return to his native country even after the peace between Sparta 
and Athens, but was finally recalled by a special decree, when Thrasy- 
bulus had expelled the Thirty Tyrants and restored the Athenian de- 
mocracy. After his restoration, Thucydides, as his history clearly evinces, 
must have lived some years at Athens ; and, according to the most cur- 
rent account of antiquity, eventually perished by the hand of an assassin. 

From this account of the career of Thucydides it appears that he spent 
only the early part of his life, up to his forty-eighth year, in intercourse 



474 THUCYDIDES. [Lect. XVIIL 

with his countrymen of Athens. After this period he was, indeed, in com- 
munication with all parts of Greece ; and he himself informs us that his 
exile enabled him to mingle with the Peloponnesians, and to gain accu- 
rate information from them on all subjects pertaining to the war. But 
he was out of the way of the intellectual revolution which took place at 
Athens between the middle and the end of the Peloponnesian war ; and 
when he returned home he found himself in the midst of a new genera- 
tion, with novel ideas, and an essentially altered taste, with which he could 
hardly have amalgamated so thoroughly in his old age as to change his 
own notions in accordance with them. Thucydides, therefore, rs alto- 
gether an old Athenian of the school of Pericles : his education, both 
real and formal, was derived from that grand and mighty period of 
Athenian history : his political principles were those which Pericles in- 
culcated ; and his style is, on the one hand, a representative of the native 
fulness and vigor of Periclean oratory, and on the other hand an offshoot 
of the antique, artificial rhetoric taught in the school of Antiphon. 

As an historian, Thucydides is so far from belonging to the same class 
with Herodotus and the Ionian logographers, that he may rather be con- 
sidered as having himself commenced an entirely new class of historical 
writing. He was acquainted with the works of several of these Ionian wri- 
ters, but whether or not with the works of Herodotus, is uncertain ; but he 
regarded them all as uncritical, fabulous, and designed rather for amuse- 
ment than instruction. Thucydides directed his attention to the public 
speeches delivered in the public assemblies and the law courts of Greece; 
and thence derived the foundation of his history, with respect both to its 
form and its materials. While the earlier historians aimed at giving a 
vivid picture of all that fell under the cognizance of the senses, by de- 
scribing the situation and productions of different countries, the peculiar 
customs of different nations, the works of art found in different places, and 
the military expeditions which were undertaken at different periods ; and, 
while they endeavored to represent a superior power ruling with unlimited 
authority over the destinies of people and princes, the attention of Thucy- 
dides was directed to human action, as it is developed from the character 
and situation of the individual, as it operates on the condition of the world 
in general. This design gives a unity of action to his work, and renders 
it an historical drama — a great law-suit, the parties to which are the bel- 
ligerent republics, and the object of which is the Athenian dominion over 
Greece. 

It is very remarkable, that Thucydides, who created this kind of his- 
tory, should have conceived and carried out the idea more clearly and 
vigorously than any of those writers who followed in his steps. His work 
was designed to be the history of the Peloponnesian war alone, and not 
the history of Greece during that war ; and consequently, he excluded 
everything pertaining either to the foreign relations or the internal policy 
of the different States, which did not bear upon the great contest for the 



471 A.C.] THUCYDIDES. 475 

chief power in Greece. On the other hand, he admitted everything, to 
whatever part of " Hellas" it referred, which was connected with this strife 
of nations. 

From the very first, Thucydides had considered this war as a great 
event in the history of the world — as one which could not be ended with- 
out deciding the question, whether Athens was to become a great empire, 
or whether she was to be reduced to the condition of an ordinary Greek 
republic, surrounded by many others equally free and equally powerful. 
He could not but see that the peace of Nicias, which was concluded after 
the first ten years of the war, had not really put an end to it — that it was 
but interrupted by an equivocal and ill-observed armistice, and that it 
broke' out afresh during the Sicilian expedition. "With the zeal of an in- 
terested party, and with all the power of truth, he shows that all this was 
one great contest, and that the peace was not a real one. 

Thucydides has distributed and arranged his materials according to 
this conception of his subject. The whole history is divided into eight 
books ; and in his introduction, which occupies the first book, the author 
begins with asserting that the Peloponnesian war was the greatest event that 
had happened within the memory of man, and establishes this position by 
a retrospective survey of the more ancient history of Greece, including 
the Persian war. He goes through the oldest period, the traditions of the 
Trojan war, the centuries immediately following that event, and, finally, 
the Persian invasion, and shows that all previous undertakings wanted the 
external resources which were brought into requisition during the Pelo- 
ponnesian war, because they were deficient in two things — money and a 
navy — which did not arise among the Greeks until a late period, and de-. 
veloped themselves by slow degrees. 

In this way Thucydides applies, historically, the maxims which Pericles 
had practically impressed upon the Athenians — that money and ships, 
not territory and population, ought to be made the basis of their power ; 
and the Peloponnesian war itself appeared to him a strong proof of this 
position, because the Peloponnesians, notwithstanding their superiority in 
extent of country, and in the number of their free citizens, so long fought 
with Athens at a disadvantage, till their alliance with Persia had fur- 
nished them with abundant pecuniary revenues, and thus enabled them 
to collect and maintain a considerable fleet. 

Having, by this comparison, shown the importance of his subject, and 
having given a short account of the manner in which he intended to treat 
it, the historian proceeds to discuss the causes which led to the war. These 
he divides into two classes : — the immediate causes, or those which lay on 
the surface, and those which lay deeper and were not alleged by the par- 
ties. The first consisted of the negotiations between Athens and Corinth 
on the subject of Corcyra and Potidsea, and the consequent complaint of 
the Corinthians in Sparta, by which the Lacedaemonians were induced to 
declare that Athens had broken the treaty. The second lay in the fear 



476 THUCYDIDES. [Lect. XVIIL 

which the growing power of Athens had inspired, and by which the Lace- 
daemonians were compelled to make war as the only pledge of security to 
the Peloponnese. This leads the historian to point out the origin of that 
power, and to give a general view of the military and political occurrences 
by which Athens, from the chosen leader of the insular and Asiatic Greeks 
against the Persians, became the absolute sovereign of all the Archipel- 
ago and its coasts. 

The war itself is divided, according to the mode in which it was carried 
on, and which was regulated among the Greeks by the seasons of the year. 
The campaigns were limited to the summer, while the winter was spent in 
preparing the armaments, and in negotiations. As the Greeks had no 
general era, and as the calendar of each country was arranged according 
to some peculiar cycle, Thucydides takes his chronological dates from the 
sequence of the seasons, and from the state of the corn-lands, which had 
a considerable influence on the military proceedings; such expressions as, 
' when the corn was in ear,' or, ' when the corn was ripe,' were sufficient 
to mark the coherence of events with all needful accuracy. 

In his history of the different campaigns, Thucydides endeavors to 
avoid interruptions to the thread of his narrative ; and hence, in describ- 
ing any expedition, whether by land or sea, he tries to keep the whole to- 
gether, and prefers to violate the order of time, either by going back, or 
by anticipating future events, in order to escape the confusion resulting 
from continually breaking off and beginning again. That long and pro- 
tracted affairs, such as the sieges of Potidasa and Plataea, must recur in 
different parts of the history is unavoidable : indeed it could not be other- 
wise, even if the distribution into summers and winters could have been 
relinquished. For such transactions as the siege of Platsea cannot be 
brought to an end in a luminous and satisfactory manner, without a com- 
plete view of the position of the belligerent powers, which prevented the 
besieged from receiving succor. The individual event, the most momen- 
tous in the whole war, and which the author has invested with the liveliest 
interest — the Athenian expedition to Sicily, with its happy commence- 
ment and its ruinous termination — is told with but few, and very short, 
digressions. 

The style of Thucydides is remarkable for its conciseness, fervor, and 
power. In descriptive talent, so peculiarly requisite in an historian, he 
was, perhaps, never excelled. The descriptions of the siege of Plateea, 
and of the expedition to Sicily, still live and breathe upon his pages. 
Indeed, Thucydides did not gather the materials for his history from 
books, but obtained them by personal researches and observations made 
by himself where the events recorded by him transpired. Hence the 
whole work bears the aspect of the narrative of an eye-witness. He 
lived, however, to complete the history of the first nineteen years only 
of the war — the history of the remaining eight years being reserved for 
the pen of Xenophon, his accomplished historical successor. 



447A.C] XENOPHON. 477 

Xenophon was a native of Athens, and was born 447 A.C., but of 
what condition of parentage is uncertain. He was the son of Gryllus, 
but of the manner in which the first part of his life was passed we have 
no knowledge. In the twenty-third year of his age, 424 A.C., we hear 
of him in the battle of Delium, in the retreat that followed which, So- 
crates is represented to have saved his life. From that period Xenophon 
devoted himself for many years to the instructions of the great philoso- 
pher, and eventually became one of the most devoted and accomplished 
of his disciples. The first literary labor of Xenophon, of which we have 
any knowledge, was the editing of the history of Thucydides, which was 
published in 402 A.C., probably immediately after Thucydides 1 death. 

In 401 A.C. Xenophon joined the army of Cyrus the younger, in the 
expedition of that prince against his brother Artaxerxes, but in what 
capacity is unknown. To aid him in the daring enterprise of dethron- 
ing his brother, Cyrus had engaged an army of thirteen thousand Greek 
auxiliaries, under the command of the Spartan general Clearchus, be- 
tween whom and Xenophon a close intimacy had long subsisted. Clear- 
chus, when he arrived at Sardis, requested Xenophon to join him in that 
city, Vhich was the head-quarters of the army, in order that he might 
introduce him to the personal acquaintance of Cyrus before the expedi- 
tion commenced. 

The real object of this expedition was concealed from the Greeks in the 
army of Cyrus ; but Clearchus, their leader, knew, and the rest doubtless 
. suspected what it was. Cyrus himself announced "that he was going to 
attack the Pisidians, but the direction of his march must have very 
soon shown that he was going elsewhere. He led his forces through Asia 
Minor, and over the mountains of Taurus to Tarsus, in Cilicia. From 
thence he passed into Syria, crossed the Euphrates, and met the vast 
army of Persians in the plain of Cunaxa, about forty miles from Baby- 
lon. In the battle that followed Cyrus lost his life, his barbarian troops 
were dispersed, and the Greeks were left alone on the wide plains be- 
tween the Tigris and the Euphrates, at a distance of more than fifteen 
hundred miles from their native country. It was not, however, till after 
the treacherous massacre of Clearchus and the other Greek commanders, 
by the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, that Xenophon became at all con- 
spicuous. 

Xenophon had hitherto held no command in the army, nor does it 
appear that he had served even as a soldier. In the commencement of 
the third book of the Anabasis he informs us how he came to take a 
part in conducting the hazardous retreat of the ten thousand Greeks 
that still survived, back to their own country. Instead of attempting to 
return by the road by which they had entered Persia, where they could 
expect to find no supplies, at least till they should reach the Mediter- 
ranean, the new Greek leaders conducted their army along the Tigris, 
and over the high table lands of Armenia to Trapezus, now TrebizoDd, a 



478 XENOPHON. [Lect. XVIII. 

Greek colony on the south-east coast of the Black Sea. From Trapezus 
the troops were conducted to Chrysopolis, opposite Byzantium ; and as 
they were now comparatively destitute, the division under the command of 
Xenophon entered the service of Seuthes, king of Thrace, who needed 
their aid, and who promised to reward them for it. The Greeks per- 
formed their part of the "engagement, but Seuthes was unwilling to pay 
them ; and it was with the greatest difficulty that Xenophon obtained from 
the king even a part of what he had promised. The description which 
Xenophon gives of the manners of the Thracians is very curious and 
amusing. 

The Lacedaemonians were at this time at war with the Persian satraps 
Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus; and Thimbron, the Spartan general, 
invited Xenophon and his troops to join them. This event occurred 
399 A.C., the same year in which Socrates was put to death; and it gave 
such offence to the Athenians that they immediately passed upon Xeno- 
phon the sentence of banishment. Thus exiled from his native country, 
Xenophon remained in Asia Minor with the Lacedaemonian army until 
396 A. C, when Agesilaus, the Spartan king, took the command; and 
when, in 394 A. C, that prince was recalled to defend his own country, 
Xenophon accompanied him to Sparta. The battle of Coronea, between 
the Spartans and the Athenians, immediately followed ; and as in that 
conflict Xenophon took part with the Spartans, his exile became thence- 
forth permanently fixed. 

Xenophon now took up his residence at Scillus, in Elis, not far 
from Olympia ; and here he was soon after joined by his wife and chil- 
dren. In this quiet retreat he remained for twenty years, during which 
he is supposed to have written most of his works ; but in 371 A.C., when 
the Eleans took Scillus, Xenophon retired to Corinth, where he probably 
remained until his death, which occurred in 359 A.C. 

As a writer, Xenophon had, perhaps, no superior in all antiquity. So 
exquisite is his style, that Plato, the great philosopher, said, ' The Graces 
dictated his language, and the Goddess of Persuasion dwelt upon his lips.' 
His works were very numerous, and, happily, the most important of them 
have been preserved. Of these, the principal are the Anabasis ; the 
HeUenica ; the Cyropadia ; the Memorabilia ; the Agesilaus ; the 
Hipparchicus ; the Cynegeticus ; the Symposium ; the Hiero ; and 
the (Economicus. 

The Anabasis, or the History of the Expedition of the Younger Cyrus, 
and of the Retreat of the Greeks, who formed a part of his army, has 
alone immortalized the author's name. It is a clear and pleasing narra- 
tive, simple and unaffected in style ; and it imparts much curious and 
valuable information of the country which was traversed by the retreat- 
ing Greeks, and of the manners of the natives, through whose territory 
they passed. It was the first work which acquainted the Greeks with 



447A.C.] XENOPHON. 479 

certain portions of the Persian empire, and it thoroughly exhibited the 
extreme weakness of that extensive monarchy. The skirmishes of the 
retreating Greeks with their enemies, and the battles with some of the 
barbarian tribes, are not such events as elevate the work to the character 
of a military history, nor can it, as such, be compared with Caesar's Com- 
mentaries. Indeed, those passages in the Anabasis which relate directly 
to the military movements of the retreating army are not always clear, 
nor have we any evidence that Xenophon possessed any military talent 
for great operations, whatever may have been his skill as the commander 
of a division. 

The Hellenica comprehends the space of forty-eight years, commencing 
with the period at which the history of Thucydides closes, and ending with 
the battle of Mantinea, 362 A.C. It is simply a narrative of events, 
with little ornament, and contains nothing in the treatment of them 
which gives special interest to the work. Some events of importance are 
briefly treated, and a few striking incidents, with particularity and much 
beauty. Indeed, it comprehended the days of the commencement of 
Grecian degeneracy, and, therefore, presented little to elicit the feelings, 
or to stir up the enthusiasm of the historian. 

The Cyropcedia may be regarded as a kind of political romance, the 
basis of which is the history of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire. 
It exhibits the manner in which citizens may be made virtuous and 
brave ; and Cyrus is the model of a wise and virtuous ruler. As a his- 
tory it has, perhaps, little value. Xenophon adopted the current stories 
concerning Cyrus, and the principal events of his reign, without any 
intention of subjecting them to a critical examination ; nor have we any 
reason to suppose that his picture of Persian morals and Persian discip 
line is anything more than a fiction. But still the whole performance 
is so exquisitely executed, that our admiration is elicited from every page. 
The dying speech of Cyrus is worthy of the pupil of Socrates, and Cicero 
has used the substance of it to enforce his argument for the immortality 
of the soul. This passage alone is sufficient evidence of Xenophon's 
belief in the immortality of the soul, independent of the organized being 
in which it acts. 1 1 never could be persuaded,' says Cyrus, ' that the 
soul lives so long as it is in a perishable body, and that it dies when it is 
released from it.' This argument of Xenophon bears a striking resem- 
blance to the argument of Bishop Butler, where, in his Analogy, he 
treats of a future state. 

The Memorabilia of Socrates was designed by Xenophon' as a defence 
of the memory of his master, against the charge of irreligion, and of cor- 
rupting the Athenian youth. In this work Socrates is represented as 
holding a series of conversations, in which he developes and inculcates 
moral doctrines in a manner peculiar to himself. It is entirely a prac- 
tical work, and professes to exhibit Socrates as he actually taught. The 
whole treatise was evidently intended as an answer to the charge upon 



480 CTESIAS. [Lect. XVIII. 

which Socrates was executed, and it is, therefore, in its nature, not 
designed as a complete exhibition of Socrates himself. That it is a 
genuine picture of the man, is indisputable ; and it is by far the most 
valuable memorial we have of Socrates' practical philosophy. 

The Agesilaus is a panegyric on Agesilaus, king of Sparta, the friend 
and protector of Xenophon after his banishment from Athens. The 
HipjKircliicus is a treatise on the duties of a commander of cavalry, and 
contains many valuable precepts. The Cynegeticus is a treatise on hunt- 
ing — an amusement of which Xenophon appears to have been pas- 
sionately fond — on the training of the dog, on the various kinds of game, 
and the mode of taking them. The Symposium, or Banquet of Philos- 
ophers, delineates the character of Socrates in the midst of his philosophic 
associates. The Hiero is a dialogue between Hiero, king of Syracuse, 
and the poet Simonides. In this dialogue the king dwells upon the dan- 
gers and difficulties of an exalted station, and the superior happiness of 
a private man ; while the poet, on the other hand, enumerates the advan- 
tages which the possession of power gives, and the means which it affords 
of obliging others, and of doing them services. The (Economicus is a 
dialogue between Socrates and Critobulus in relation to the administra- 
tion of a man's household affairs, and to the care of his property. These 
minor productions of Xenophon require, however, no farther notice. 

"We have lingered so long with the three great Grecian historians, 
Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, that upon their successors we can 
bestow only a passing glance. This circumstance we cannot, however, 
upon reflection, regret, as it is to the former, exclusively, that we are in- 
debted for our knowledge of Grecian affairs from the remotest period in 
their history, down to the death of Epaminondas, 362 A.C. ; and, doubt- 
less, much of the interest which these affairs have always excited among 
refined nations, is attributable more to the brilliancy with which they are 
delineated, than to their intrinsic importance. 

Ctesias was a native of Cnidus, in Caria, and was a contemporary of 
Xenophon ; but neither the period of his birth, nor the time of his death, 
has been preserved. He belonged to a family of physicians, and was 
himself bred to that profession ; and being taken prisoner by the Per- 
sians during the reign of Artaxerxes, he was conveyed to that monarch's 
court, where his medical skill soon raised him to the position of royal 
physician. After having remained some years in Persia, Ctesias was sent 
by Artaxerxes into Greece, to concert measures with Conon, the Athe- 
nian commander, for humbling the pride of Sparta ; and from that period 
nothing more is known of him. 

During his residence at the Persian court, Ctesias collected all the in- 
formation that was there attainable for writing the history of Persia, the 
design of which was to give his countrymen a more accurate knowledge 



204 A.C.] P L Y B I U S . 481 

of that empire than they then possessed, and to refute the errors current 
in Greece, concerning it. The materials for this history, so far as he 
did not describe events that fell under his own observation, he derived 
from the official history of the Persian empire, kept in accordance with a 
law of the country. His history commences with the foundation of the 
Assyrian empire, and comes down to 398 A.C. The form and style of 
this work were highly commended by the ancients, and its loss may there- 
fore be regarded, so far as the history of the East is concerned, one of the 
most serious that we could have sustained. Of the original work of 
Ctesias nothing has been preserved but a meagre abridgment by 
Photius. 

Ctesias wrote a brief work also on the natural history of India, of 
which Photius has left us an analysis. As this work is derived princi- 
pally from Persian records and traditions, and not from original re- 
searches, and thus contains a mixture of truth and fable, it could never 
have been of any great value. • Ctesias wrote in the Ionic dialect, and his 
style is said to have been easy, full, and flowing. With Ctesias the early 
school of Grecian historians closed, and thenceforward Greece produced 
no other historian for two hundred years. 

Polybius, the next historical writer to be noticed, was the son of Ly- 
cortas, and was born at . Megalopolis, in Arcadia, 204 A.C. Lycortas, 
being one of the most eminent men of Arcadia, Polybius enjoyed every 
advantage of education, and in early manhood became one of the most 
distinguished men of the Achaean league. "When that league was dis- 
solved by the Romans in 168 A.C, one thousand of the most conspicu- 
ous of the Achasans, among whom was Polybius, were ordered to Rome 
to answer the charge of not assisting the Romans in their recent war with 
Perseus, the last king of Macedon. These Achaean exiles, instead of being 
carried to Rome, were distributed among the Etruscan towns in the 
vicinity of the city ; but Polybius having previously formed the acquaint- 
ance of iEmilius ' Paulus, was taken by that distinguished commander 
into his own family, and there became the teacher of his two sons, Fabius 
and Scipio. The relation thus formed between these two young noble- 
men and the future historian soon ripened into the most intimate friend- 
ship ; and when Polybius, therefore, made known his design of writing 
the history of the Punic wars, Scipio afforded him every possible facility 
for collecting the necessary materials. Polybius continued to reside at 
Rome, with occasional journeyings into his native country, until his 
death, which was occasioned by a fall from his horse, in the eighty-third 
year of his age, and 122 A.C. 

The history of Polybius was comprised in forty books, and embraced 
the entire period from the commencement of the Second Punic war 220 
A.C, to the fall of Carthage and Corinth 146 A.C It consisted of two 
distinct parts, which were probably published at different times, and after- 

31 



482 D 1 D R U S. [Lect. XVIIL 

wards united into one work. The first part comprised a period of fifty- three 
years, beginning with the second Punic war, the Social war in Greece, and 
the war between Ptolemy Philopator in Asia, and ending with the conquest 
of Perseus and the downfall of the Macedonian kingdom, 168 A.C. This 
was in reality the main portion of the work, and its great object was to 
show how the Eomans had, in this brief period of fifty-three years, con- 
quered the greater part of the world. The second part, which formed a 
kind of supplement to the first, comprised the period of twenty-two years, 
from the conquest of Perseus to the fall of Corinth. To prepare him- 
self for the composition of this great work, Polybius traversed every coun- 
try over which the scenes of his history would carry him — from Carthage 
through Africa, Spain, Gaul, and Italy — and thus, like Thucydides, made 
himself an eye-witness of every scene which he designed to describe. Of 
this great work the first five books only, and a few fragments, have been 
preserved. 

The characteristic feature of the history of Polybius, and the one which 
distinguishes it from all other histories that have come down to us from 
antiquity, is its didactic nature. He did not, like most other historians, 
write to afford amusement to his readers, or to gratify an idle curiosity 
respecting the migration of nations, the foundation of cities, or the set- 
tlement of colonies ; but his object was to teach by the past a knowledge 
of the future, and to deduce from previous events, lessons of practical 
wisdom. In style, it is true, the great historical writers of the earlier 
Grecian period were far superior to Polybius ; but in every other quality 
of an historian, no other writer, either ancient or modern, has sur- 
passed him. 

Diodorus Siculus was a native of the town of Agyrium in Sicily, and 
a contemporary of Julius Caesar ; but the period of his birth is unknown. 
Little farther is recorded of the history of his life than that he early con- 
ceived the design of writing a universal history,; and in order to acquire 
the requisite knowledge for the proper execution of this important task, 
he spent thirty years in travelling through the different countries of Eu- 
rope and Asia, and in examining public documents and particular lo- 
calities. 

The work of Diodorus consisted of forty books, and embraced the period 
from the earliest mythical ages down to the beginning of Caesar's Gallic 
wars. It was also divided into three great sections ; the first of which 
occupied the first six books, and embraced the history of the mythical 
times previous to the Trojan war. The second section consisted of eleven 
books, and contained the history of the period from the Trojan war down 
to the death of Alexander the Great ; and the third section, which con- 
tained the remaining twenty-three books, treated of the history of the 
world from the death of Alexander down to the author's own age. Of 
this elaborate work the first five books, and from the eleventh to the 



50A.D.] PLUTARCH. 483 

twentieth inclusive, are perfect ; and of the remaining books, very con- 
siderable fragments have been preserved. 

The style of Diodorus is clear and lucid, but not always equal — a pe- 
culiarity attributable to the different character of the works which he, in 
his own compilation, used or abridged. His diction holds a medium be- 
tween the refined Attic and the vulgar Greek which was spoken in his time. 

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, was born at Halicarnassus, in Caria, about 
68 A.C., but early removed to Rome, where he remained until his death, 
which occurred 7 A. C, in the sixty-second year of his age. His life was 
that of a man devoted purely and exclusively to literature ; and hence it 
affords few incidents. 

The works of Dionysius were very numerous, and may properly be di- 
vided into two classes — the first of which embraces his rhetorical and 
critical treatises, and were probably written soon after his settlement in 
Rome — and the second, his historical works. Of the latter, the principal 
performance is the history of Rome from its foundation down to the com- 
mencement of the second Punic war. This work was divided into twenty 
books, the first nine of which are still complete, while of the tenth and 
the eleventh we have the greater part ; but of the remaining nine books 
nothing excepting a few fragments remains. The style of Dionysius is 
good, and his language is pure ; but both appear to greater advantage in 
his rhetorical and critical works than in his history. ' 

Plutarch was a native of Chaeronea, in Boeotia, and was born about 
50 A.D. Though his grandfather, Lamprias, and his two brothers, 
Timon and Lamprias, are mentioned by him, yet neither his father nor 
his mother is anywhere alluded to. From this circumstance critics are 
generally inclined to believe that he was of low origin ; but the manner 
in which he was educated does not sustain this idea. He studied phi- 
losophy at Athens, and afterwards removed to Rome, where he, for many 
years, filled high and important offices of State ; and in advanced life he 
returned to his native place, and there passed the remainder of his days. 
The time of his death is uncertain, though it is generally believed that 
he lived to an advanced age. 

The work which has immortalized Plutarch's name is his Parallel 
Lives of forty -six Greeks and 'Romans. The forty- six Lives are ar- 
ranged in pairs, each pair containing the life of a Greek and a Roman, 
and is followed by a comparison of the two men ; though in some pairs 
the comparison is omitted. The author seems to have considered each 
pair of Lives and the Parallel as composing a book; for when he 
. speaks of the Lives of Demosthenes and Cicero, he mentions them as the 
fifth book of his work. By this remark he must have meant, however, 
the fifth in the order in which he wrote them ; for, if each pair composed 
a book, it could not be the fifth in any other sense. 



484 APPIAN. [Lect. XVIII. 

Plutarch's style is harsh and dry ; and of this quality in his writing 
he himself was perfectly conscious, for when reminded of it he replied, 
" I am aware of what you say; but it is not my business to please the 
ear, but to instruct and charm the mind." This is the secret of the 
success of his great work. It isj and will remain, in spite of all the 
fault that may be found with it by plodding collectors of facts, and small 
critics, the book of those who can nobly think, and dare, and do so. It 
is the book of all ages, for the same reason that good portraiture is the 
painting of all time ; for the human face and the human character are 
ever the same. It is a mirror in which all men may look at themselves. 

Arrian was a native of Nicomedia, in Bithynia, and was born towards 
the end of the first Christian century. He was a pupil and friend of 
Epictetus, and bore the same relation to that philosopher that Xeno- 
phon had borne to Socrates. In 124 A.D. he gained the friendship of 
the emperor Adrian, and received from the emperor's own hands " the 
broad purple" — a distinction which conferred upon him not only the 
privileges of Roinan citizenship, but the right to hold any of the great 
offices of State in the Roman empire. In 136 A.D. Arrian was appointed 
prefect of Cappadocia, and in the following year that province was in- 
vaded by the Alani, wtom the prefect defeated in a decisive battle, and 
thus added to his reputation of a philosopher that of a brave and skilful 
general. Under Antoninus Pius, Arrian was promoted in 146 A.D. to 
the consulship ; and a few years after he retired to his native town, and 
there passed the remainder of his life in study, and in the composition 
of his historical works. He died at an advanced age in the reign of 
Marcus Aurelius, and Dion Cassius soon after wrote his life ; but un- 
fortunately no fragment of the work has reached us. 

Of the historical productions of Arrian, the principal is Alexander's 
Asiatic Expedition. This great work is still almost entirely complete, 
and it strikingly reminds the reader of Xenophon's Anabasis. It is 
true, the work is not equal to the Anabasis as a composition ; and what 
work is ! It does not possess either the thorough equality and noble 
simplicity, or the vividness of Xenophon ; but Arrian was, nevertheless, 
one of the most excellent writers of his time. As an expression of the 
highest mark of their admiration, the Athenians called Arrian the 
Younger Xenophon. Arrian wrote another historical work also, on 
India, not dissimilar to the work of Ctesias on the same subject. 

A word about Appian, Dion Cassius, and iElian, will close our present 
remarks. 

Appian was, as we learn from various passages of his writings, a native 
of Alexandria, in Egypt, but early removed to Rome, and resided in the 
imperial city during the reigns of Trajan, Adrian, and Antoninus Pius. 
He wrote, amongst other things, a Roman history in twenty-four books, 

■ 



155A.D.] DION CASSIUS.— .ELIAN. 485 

on a plan differing from that of most historians. Instead of treating 
the Roman empire as a whole in chronological order, he gave a separate 
account of the affairs of each country from the time that it became con- 
nected with the Romans, till it was finally incorporated in the Roman 
empire. The work is not, however, either in matter or manner, of any 
great importance. 

Dion Cassius was born at Nicsea, in Bithynia, about 155 A.D. He 
early removed to Rome, and was eventually raised to the position of 
senator, in which, and various other positions, he passed a long life ; 
but the time of his death is not known. Though Dion wrote a his- 
tory of Rome, from the earliest periods down to his own times, yet 
his principal compositions were biographical. In the formation of his 
style, Dion endeavors to imitate the classical writers of ancient Greece ; 
but his language is, nevertheless, full of peculiarities, barbarisms, and 
Latinisms — probably the consequence of his long residence in Italy. 

JElian, though of Greek parentage, was a native of Italy, and was 
contemporary with the two last writers mentioned. His principal his- 
torical work is entitled Varia Historia, and contains short narratives 
and anecdotes, historical, biographical, and antiquarian, selected from 
various authors, generally without their names being given, and on a 
variety of subjects. Its chief value, however, arises from its containing 
many passages from older authors whose works are now lost. 



THE END. 






I 



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